


How Carol Got Her Groove Back

by Trogdor19



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Action, Action & Romance, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Romance, Slow Burn, Survival, Suspense, Wilderness Survival, Winter between Season 2 & 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:47:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 37
Words: 91,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23719948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trogdor19/pseuds/Trogdor19
Summary: How it all started between Daryl & Carol. The stories behind how they gave each other confidence, & acceptance, & a slow simmer into the spark of romance. Plus how Carol got her knife & Daryl got his poncho. Season 2.5 — Follows the growth of the relationship between Daryl and Carol, in that lost winter between Season 2 & 3. Full cast, but Caryl-centric
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Carol Peletier
Comments: 25
Kudos: 69





	1. Crossbow Teddy Bear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is complete, but I'm slowly moving it over from fanfic.net so if it's not all up yet, be patient with me or peek at it on that site, same author screenname! 
> 
> When I watched the show, I was bothered by how much the characters changed in that winter on the road between S2 and S3. This is my attempt to fill all those gaps, and my idea is to take them from the end of Season 2 to the beginning of Season 3, and match the development of their characters and personality to what happened on the show—but also to add a little romance as it matches with their character development at the time. That sounds contradictory, but I swear, it makes perfect sense in my head. I think in this case, the canon and non canon will mesh more naturally than you think.
> 
> Warnings: There will be some violence and action, just like on the show, and some discussion of abuse and sexual assault, though no on-the-page sexual assault. The individual chapters will have warnings so you can skip anything you like. 
> 
> This is my favorite of my long Walking Dead fics, so enjoy!

Carol couldn’t sleep unless Daryl was on watch.

The first problem was the smell. Since they left the farm, the whole world had a faint smell of rot, like something drifting up from a garbage disposal. Except this, she couldn’t just vanquish with a lemon and a little fresh water. It meant she could never forget the way things were now.

The scent got stronger at night, when the walkers were on the move. She could hear them out there, too. Shuffling, sometimes the spike of screams in the distance when they found prey. Eventually, exhaustion would drag her down, but she’d twitch back awake at the slightest sound. Because the second problem was that there were no walls or fences, nothing between her and the thousands of hungry mouths with their dull, bloody teeth.

It was somehow worse when Rick stood watch. He’d pace, with tension and anxiety pouring off him, his fear all wrapped up into black anger. He reminded her of Ed in the middle of a binge and she didn’t understand how he hadn’t hit anyone yet. It was only a matter of time until he lashed out. Sometimes she’d curl close to Lori at night, as if being there when he snapped was some kind of sisterhood, as if it might help.

Carol glanced around as she unrolled her single, stolen blanket by that night’s fire, her bones rattled from so many hours of the motorcycle engine’s vibration. Not to mention the two fights today with walkers, huddling back to back with Lori as the other woman’s pistol fired again and again and the men and Maggie hacked down bloodthirsty corpses.

“What watch did you take?” Carol asked Daryl.

“Second.”

The first few times she’d asked, Daryl’d reared back, looked at her like it was a trick or she was trying to start an argument. Now, he just answered.

He threw down his pack. On the dark side, leaving her between him and the fire. Everyone else huddled as close in to the heat as they could, but he didn’t seem to need it. Instead, he slept with his back toward her and his face to all the horrors of the forest, coming instantly awake every time a walker came too close. She knew, because she was awake for all of it.

It had been hard enough to sleep in quarry camp, with only thin nylon between her and the raking fingers of the night. But there were more walkers now, swarming over everything like insects.

Her peripheral vision followed Daryl as he slung his crossbow off his back. Checked the string, the release, set it down. Her eyelids drooped a little at the familiar one, two, three beat of his habit.

He kicked out his blanket, rolled down onto his back and laced his fingers behind his head. Glanced at her once, then closed his eyes.

She wasn’t sure what he was checking her for. Couldn’t imagine he was satisfied by anything he saw, unless he was just checking if she had been bitten yet.

His foot jerked and she flinched.

_Danger._

But he was falling asleep, not waking in response to some sound he’d picked up that she hadn’t. There were hundreds of things a day that focused his attention like that. She’d started watching him instead of the forest, because she missed so much.

She sighed and wriggled, trying to find a way to lie that didn’t leave her hipbone digging into some lump or pebble. The ground always looked flat until you were trying to sleep on it.

Her stomach rumbled. They barely had any rations right now, so Rick had said they’d save what they had for morning. She didn’t know why. They were fighting off walkers once or twice every night. What was the sense in dying with canned food still in their packs?

She could remember the savor of a fresh ham: the heat of it in her mouth and the way it mixed with creamy mashed potatoes. Her teeth ground together as she wished she’d have eaten more at breakfast this morning. Instead, she’d pretended to be full and passed her can of green beans to Daryl to finish. He never took enough to begin with. Not enough to feed a child, much less his big body for all the ranging through the forest he did. And yet, he never seemed to run out of energy when it came to stabbing walkers. He never got caught in their grappling arms like she did, because he was always stronger than them. Stronger than everybody left in the world, it seemed like on most days.

How could he _sleep_ like that, with his stomach dead empty and the whole world around them full of nightmares?

She glanced across the campfire. Rick was on watch, his fingers snapping and unsnapping his holster. He was getting twitchier, just like Shane once had.

She rolled her back to Daryl so she could keep an eye on Rick, the heat of the fire drying her skin until it felt scaly. When she’d said they weren’t safe, Daryl had snapped at her, and she hadn’t dared bring it up again. Later, she’d been embarrassed that she’d said “we,” assuming so easily that he’d want to take her with him if he left. He was too good to be Rick’s henchman, but as for her…nothing could erase the weight of the moment when she was cowering against the shed and Andrea had to leap from the safety of a car to come get her.

Daryl could leave whenever he wanted, with whoever he wanted, because he’d be a valuable member of any group. She’d always be a burden in this world, no matter how many shirts she washed.

Her fingers curled against a fold of her blanket, her knuckles digging into the dirt.

She hadn’t even thought about it—it had just come out. _We aren’t safe here._ When the group had been split up, she thought it was going to be only the two of them from then on, with just the roar of the motorcycle and the crackle of the flames fading into the night. And that felt like the truth.

Why had she thought he would want her to come with him?

She tried to swallow, remembering the words he’d thrown at her, back at the farm. _You’re just afraid because you’re all alone! You got no husband. No daughter. You don’t know what to do with yourself. But you ain’t my problem._

He was right.

He was often right. But it was only when he was angry that his honesty turned cruel.

Her half-numb toes curled inside her boots, the dampness from the ground seeping into her poorly-fitted jeans. He’d been letting her ride on the back of his motorcycle. But he could stop, anytime he felt like it.

She turned a little, because she needed to see with her own eyes that he was still beside her. Once, this group had felt like hers, but now she wasn’t so sure. They’d changed, all of them. It would be so easy to scatter right now. The only one she really felt connected to was Daryl.

He was still asleep, but he’d rolled onto his side facing out toward the night, the blanket stuffed up to his chin and his feet pulling in closer to himself.

He always went to sleep all sprawled out, his big body claiming all the space it wanted, the way men did. But the longer he was out, the tighter he curled into himself, like he was waiting for a kick.

Daryl was alone, too. His family was dead. They said Merle was still alive, that he’d stolen their van in Atlanta. But he hadn’t come back to the quarry in the two days they waited before leaving. And the more times Daryl had glanced up the empty highway, the harder he swung that pick at the corpses.

Leaves rustled underneath him as his knees pulled in a little more, protecting his belly. His blanket had gotten twisted, exposing a line of bare, dirt-streaked skin below the back of his leather vest.

Carol scooted a little closer, spreading the blanket so it covered his feet, then smoothing it down over his back.

He rolled to face her, fast enough her hand got caught beneath his ribs. He wasn’t breathing, his eyes focused hard on her face.

She blinked, because he never stared at her that directly. Little glances, sidelong looks. The only thing he looked at with that kind of unveiled intensity was the sight of his crossbow.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice a bare rumble that wouldn’t even have carried across the fire. “You hear somethin’?”

She pulled her hand free and shook her head, something shifting deep in her knotted belly. He thought she was waking him because she was afraid. And he was right there, laser-focused as he searched her face. He was right there for her.

She kept looking at him long after one of them should have broken the moment, because it felt like a single tiny thread to hang onto in a whole world that was falling away.

After a minute, he grunted and punched his backpack, lying back down on it. She could tell from the tension in his body that he listened for a while, though, before he let himself drift back into sleep. His blanket was all out of place again. She itched to tuck it back around him, but she didn’t want to disturb him again.

As soon as his breaths evened out, her ears sharpened again, straining at every sound.

Carol nearly groaned. She was so tired it hurt down into her kidneys, her eyes itchy with fatigue. She just wanted to _sleep_.

She shifted against the hard ground and caught sight of Daryl’s crossbow, right above his head. Reaching up, she let her fingers trail over the curved part that cupped against his shoulder. It was worn smooth from use, battered into the exact shape of the muscle in his shoulder. She curled her fingers over it.

And slowly, her lids drooped shut.

She dozed on and off, waking again when he pulled the crossbow out from under her hand for his turn at watch. But then all the sounds of the forest faded behind his footsteps as he quietly paced around the fire, checking every avenue of attack. And for those few hours, she fell deeply, softly asleep.

#

Carol found him crouched by his motorcycle the next morning. She took a breath. “Daryl?”

He stiffened, like he was surprised to hear her say his name. They spent a lot of time together. On the bike, by the fire at night. But they did all that silently. No need to talk when you did the same thing every day.

He looked up, his face utterly closed. “You riding in one of the trucks today?”

He chucked his blanket in the saddlebag of the bike, the leather creaking with the force of it.

“No. Why—” But she broke off, because it didn’t matter.

He’d probably assume that if she was going to speak up about something, it would be about safety. And he’d warned her the bike wasn’t safe. But to Carol, the bike felt a thousand times more secure than the cars, because Daryl knew exactly where to put it.

She squared her shoulders. This time, she wasn’t here to talk about playing it safe.

“I want to do my part around camp,” she said. “I want you to teach me to kill walkers.”

He stood, frowning. “You do your part. Hell, you just about never stop movin’ till Lori sits on ya.”

“Doesn’t matter. At quarry camp, I thought I was doing my part. But when the walkers overran us, it’s not like they skipped my tent because they knew it was the laundry, not the armory.” She crossed her arms. “And you know what happened at the farm.” Maybe someday she’d be able to say Andrea’s name out loud. She should. It was the least you could do for someone who gave their life for you.

She swallowed. If she learned to defend herself, that would have to serve as her tribute to Andrea. After all, Andrea came into camp knowing no more about weapons than Carol, and she’d learned.

Daryl flipped over the motorcycle key in his hands, squinted at her with his chin lowered. “This about Rick again? ‘Cause you don’t trust him to protect us?”

“Nobody can protect anybody anymore. They try, but then…” She threw out a hand. So many names she didn’t want to say.

He spit off to the side and continued to pack up. “Yeah, wouldn’t hurt to learn a thing or two. But I got my eye on you.”

He said it so plain that she could tell it was like one of his old bluffs. Trying to pretend it didn’t mean anything to him so nobody would think to take it away.

“I know you do.” She touched his shoulder, but when it tightened under her touch, she let her hand drop. “Except if you’re always watching my back, who’s watching yours?”

“ _Rick_ ,” he said, staring at her for a mutinous second.

Something about that warmed her from the inside out. He didn’t think much of most people’s common sense, but once you impressed him, no one could ever say Daryl Dixon wasn’t loyal.

She kept her voice soft, trying to make him understand that she wasn’t arguing with him, however many reservations she still had about their leader. “Rick’s watching Lori’s back and Carl’s and Beth and Maggie and T-dog and Hershel and Glenn. When he gets overrun, he calls for _you_.”

Daryl started gnawing at the inside of his lips, looking annoyed that he couldn’t dispute that.

“You’re the one he worries about last,” she said. “And rightfully so, but it’s not going to do you any favors the day you finally need him.”

“Some argument you got there,” he scoffed. “You don’t need to learn to fight to watch my back, woman. Harder to kill a Dixon than all that. Hell, I got shot with an arrow, a gun and throwed off a horse all in one day. _Still_ dragged myself all the way back and didn’t need no help to do it, neither.”

She looked him dead in the eyes. “Maybe I want to save my own ass.”

He scratched the back of his neck, rocked his weight into his heels. Considered her. “All right. Why not Rick, though? He’s the lawman. Him and Shane were certified to teach people to shoot the right way and all.”

“I don’t want to learn to fight the right way. I want to fight dirty. I want to _win_.”

The corner of his mouth pulled up, and he looked at her a little different than he had before.

For a second, she thought he might chuckle, but then engines fired as the rest of the people in the camp started to prepare to leave. Daryl swung a leg over the motorcycle, starting it and stomping down on the throttle so it growled hungrily.

When he looked back over his shoulder, his smile had grown, just a little. He jerked his chin, and she hopped on behind him, gripping his waist more firmly than she’d dared before, because today she didn’t feel like a guest.

As Daryl pulled out to lead the convey, the motor roared and throbbed its vibration through the thick pad of the seat. Instead of keeping a careful inch between then, Carol let her thighs rest against the backs of his. For the warmth, and because it felt right.

Maybe she could be the kind of woman who rode motorcycles.


	2. Limits

**Chapter 2: Limits**

The forest rested around them, the scent of rain-washed tree bark pleasant after so many days of motorcycle exhaust and campfire smoke. Despite their mission out here, Carol was strangely relaxed. It was nice to be away from all the tension and squabbling of camp. As food supplies ran short, so did tempers. It was a break of sorts to be alone with only Daryl.

He shook his head, staring at her hands. “Nope. You’re holdin’ it like you’re going to fight a human, not a walker.”

“Why would I hold it two different ways? The blade only goes one way.”

He flipped the knife over and rearranged her fingers. “People and walkers think different. A person’ll try to protect themself, maybe try to take the knife from ya. They might flinch or get intimidated. Walker won’t do any of that. ‘Sides, you need to come in high for a walker. With a human, you can keep the knife down in close to yer front, strike where it’s easiest for ya because you’ll hurt ‘em no matter where you stab ‘em. Walkers, it’s gotta be the head. They’ll walk right into your knife, too, and sometimes it gets all stuck in there. Useless.”

He moved her arm, showing her a few different positions of attack that would allow her to catch a walker in the head, while also keeping her knife in a position that would be less likely to get knocked out of her hand.

“Practice those for a minute.” He stepped back to watch. “Once you get walkers figured, we’ll work on stuff for humans.”

She stopped her practice stabs and stared at him. “Do you really think that’s necessary?”

“Live ones are more dangerous than walkers’ll ever be. Smarter. Meaner. ‘Sides, there’s a lot more men than women around these days. Means you’re always gonna be a target.” He scowled, his face darkening.

 _Always._ The word twisted in her stomach and she lowered the knife, her arm suddenly weak. Was that her future now? A whole life of trying to avoid rape? But then, it hadn’t been much different before. First her stepfather, then Ed. Even one of the drifters that came through quarry camp and caught her alone down by the water one day before she screamed and Jim and Shane came running. She’d always been a target. Didn’t matter that she wasn’t pretty, or even young anymore.

“What are ya doin’?” Daryl gestured. “Practice. Need to do it a bunch, so when you’re scared, you don’t have to think to remember what you’re doin’.” He glanced past her and she followed his look, stiffening at the sight of a female walker reeling their way. Carol hadn’t even been paying enough attention to hear it coming. She moved across the clearing to his side.

He gave her an odd look and edged away. “What, you think I wanna have Hershel stitching me up tonight? Practice away from me, woman.”

“Daryl…” She pointed nervously to the walker.

He rolled his eyes and stalked over, punching his knife through the walker’s eye and then coming back. “Shit, woman, I ain’t got all day. You wanna eat tonight or what? ‘Cause there ain’t that much light, and I’m wasting it all on you standing around like that knife’s gonna kill a walker all by itself.”

She stared at the weapon in her hand. Longer than any kitchen knife she’d ever used. It looked like a joke. She couldn’t kill anybody with that, and all a walker would have to do was bump it out of her hand and she’d be finished. “Why not a gun? At least then I could do it from a distance. It doesn’t require as much strength. Shooting would be smarter, wouldn’t it?”

His lip twitched. “We ain’t got the ammo. And we go to play shooting gallery, we’ll end up with more targets on our hands than we need. Sound draws ‘em in.”

“So what? It’s too late now that we’re not on the farm? I can never learn to shoot?”

“Didn’t say that.” He narrowed his eyes, stalking forward to get into her space. She stood her ground, knowing he wasn’t going to lay a hand on her. “You asked me to teach you to fight,” he growled. “You gonna listen, or just stand here telling me how you already know all you need to know? ‘Cause I got shit to do.”

“It was just a question.”

“Well, I don’t feel like answerin’.”

He whirled, and she almost smiled.

“If you’re trying to scare me, you’re going to have to try harder,” she called.

He snorted out some sound halfway between disgust and a laugh. He leaned against a tree, starting to clean his nails with the tip of his own knife, which was as long as her forearm.

She went back to practicing her swings, oddly comforted by the exchange.

He knew he could make her flinch. That night after Sophia came out of the barn, he’d thrown every cruel word he could think of at her. He’d chosen his barbs well but none of them hit the mark because she could so clearly see the hurt beneath. He wanted to have found her little girl for her, and he couldn’t. Daryl hadn’t quite seemed to know what to do with the depth of his own pain that night.

But she hadn’t let him chase her off. Then he had stepped in too fast, one of his hunter-quick motions she wasn’t quite used to yet and old muscle memory flinched, her head jerking back to avoid a slap.

She’d seen the horror in his eyes at what he’d done, then right on its heels, the knowledge that she just gave him the key to getting her out of his face. She watched him struggle with himself, trying to decide how bad he wanted to be left alone. In the end, he couldn’t bring himself to use her weak point against her.

At that point, she’d been gaining respect for him for weeks, building affection for him for days, but that’s when she knew. She could trust him. She could always trust him.

“Keep your elbow tight. If’n you wing it out like that, weakens your strike,” he said without looking up.

“You’d make a good daddy.”

He jerked, his eyes coming up wide. She grinned, happy to have gotten a reaction out of him. “You’ve got eyes in the back of your head already. See everything.”

He tipped his chin up. “I see that walker behind you.”

She whirled, and he was right. It was just starting to moan, maybe fifteen feet out. She thought she saw movement further back, too, but she couldn’t bear to take her eyes off it to check. A long string of flesh had torn down from its cheek and it hung from its chin, waggling with every lurching step.

Carol backed toward Daryl, the knife falling to her side.

“What you doin’?” He nodded toward the walker. “Practice. That’s what we’re out here for, ain’t it? It’s just one, anyway.”

She took a deep breath, glancing at Daryl. He wasn’t even bothering to watch the walker, but his knife was still in his hand as he cleaned his thumbnail, and his crossbow leaned against the tree next to him. If she screwed this up, he wouldn’t let anything happen to her.

She took a shaky step toward the walker, then another one.

“Don’t hold the knife so tight,” Daryl said. “Makes it easier to drop.”

Her heart was beating so fast she could barely stand upright and she couldn’t feel her fingers. If she held the knife any looser, she’d drop it for sure.

The walker reached for her, broken fingers rasping over her shirt. Its moan huffed out, rot-tinged air clinging to her face. Carol jerked the knife up and stabbed wildly. The tip wasn’t pointed straight down and the blade of the knife hit its skull and skittered off.

The walker grabbed her, dragging her in toward its mouth. She jumped backward and the walker came with her, its weight tipping them both off balance so she fell. She landed on a rock, pain jarring up through her back. In the second of shock, it nearly got its teeth into her face.

She jerked up both arms, panic shooting through her when she realized she must have lost the knife in the fall. “Daryl!”

“Grab it by the neck with one hand and hold it back so it can’t bite you,” he said. “Get your knife back with your other.”

Its teeth snapped just above her face. Blood and tissue still caught between them from its last meal. Her arms trembled from the effort of holding it back. No way could she do that with one hand. If she let go to scrabble for the knife, it would have her.

“I can’t! I’m not strong enough!”

“Stab it!” he yelled, not sounding so calm anymore. “The hell you doin’? Stop messing around!”

The walker yanked at her shoulders, its mouth crushing ever closer to her face. Wetness smeared across her nose as one of its lips grazed her.

Why wasn’t Daryl helping? He was just going to let it kill her, wasn’t he? He probably thought he was making a point but by the time he realized she was faking her lack of strength, it would be too late. And why shouldn’t it be? She was worthless. Weak. Ed had told her enough times, and he’d been right. She couldn’t even protect her daughter, the one thing she said she’d always do, even if she did nothing else in her life right. She was a failure. She couldn’t fight off one lone walker and there was a whole world of them now.

The strength just oozed out of her arms. There was nowhere to hide. Nowhere to go. Walkers everywhere, no Sophia to go back to anyway. Her body curled without her telling it to, into the ball she’d always fallen into after Ed threw her to the ground. It didn’t make the blows hurt less but it just…happened. She simply couldn’t do anything else.

The walker on top of her jerked, and for a second she thought Daryl had finally stepped in and shot it. But no, it wasn’t gone. It had just moved. She was further underneath its rotting body now. She could hear its teeth snapping together somewhere above her head, its knees kicking her in the hips as it tried to thrash its way back down to biting distance.

“Get your knife!” Daryl roared.

She flinched at the viciousness of his tone, and her mind drifted a little further from her body. There was nothing she could do to stop what was about to happen. But she didn’t have to think about it, didn’t have to let her mind dwell on what was happening. She could remember cuddling Sophia back when they still had beds, reading her little girl her favorite story: The Velveteen Rabbit.

“What are you doing, woman?” Daryl shouted. “Get your knife, get it now! More’s coming! Stab that fucking walker!”

She tried not to hear him, to focus on the words to the Velveteen Rabbit, but he was shouting so loudly and the walker was bruising her with its kicks. She had no idea how it hadn’t managed to bite her yet. More were coming. Daryl wouldn’t have time to save her, even if he decided to. Why hadn’t it bitten her yet?

If she turned, Daryl would have to finish her himself.

The thought stabbed into her like a cold needle, out of nowhere.

She remembered the day in front of Hershel’s barn, when Sophia came out, her beautiful eyes all glazed over and white. She’d felt Daryl gather himself to get up after he’d caught her. She’d seen him finish off dozens of infected. Friends, acquaintances. Hell, he tried to kill Jim himself when no one else would allow it and she’d watched the two of them quietly playing cards together, on lots of nights before that. But when it came to Sophia, Daryl had sagged back down with her, both of them flattened to the dirt with the weight of their grief. He couldn’t finish Sophia, and Rick had to do it.

Carol threw out a hand, groping blindly on the ground. If she could get the knife before the walker got in position to bite her, she could at least try to stab it. If she turned and Daryl hesitated, she might bite him and then his death would be her fault. She’d be the one walker he couldn’t fight.

Grass, dirt, rocks. Her fumbling hand finally hit smooth metal and she snatched up the knife. She was holding it wrong but didn’t have time to fix that. She just stabbed wildly at the walker on top of her.

Daryl jerked in a breath and cursed, and suddenly the walker was moving. She stabbed it again, but it was still writhing on top of her and she couldn’t see. She aimed higher and blood sprayed.

A blob of something chunky hit her face.

She stabbed again and it went still. She shoved with her arms, but the walker was collapsed on top of her, bleeding onto her face. She gagged and sobbed, finally rolling it off by getting her feet up under her and shoving with her hips.

“’Bout goddamn time,” Daryl said tersely. “One more coming.”

She looked up and squeaked in terror at the moaning, reeling walker coming at her. “No, Daryl, I can’t, not another one, please please please.” She choked on her tears, her eyes blurring so all she could see was jerking motion, dirty cloth and red of blood. They were all so bloody.

The walker she’d killed still had one gnawed ankle lying limply across her leg. She hyperventilated, staring at it.

“Get up,” Daryl snarled, and when she didn’t, he grabbed her arm and hauled her up. “Don’t let ‘em get you on the ground. It’s harder to fight, easier for their weight to pin you. Kick _them_ down and then stab ‘em where they’re easier to reach.”

He was _talking_. Just talking like this was totally normal but there was a dead person coming right at her. Daryl wasn’t her friend, wasn’t her anything. He was going to stand here and watch her die.

Terror bubbled up from her belly and she screamed.

“You going for extra credit or what? Stop drawing in more,” he said, and then the walker was on her.

At the first touch of its fingers to her, she went mad. She started stabbing. Anything she could reach. Its arms, its throat, its mouth. It staggered under the force of her blows and her knife finally sunk in along its nose. It fell, her knife stuck in its skull as she fell on top of it. The walker’s mouth still clicked open and closed and then she jerked the knife sideways and that must have done enough damage because the thing died.

She shoved away from it, frantically wiping blood off her arms, her face, her clothes. It just smeared more and more. Brighter. More disgusting. They hadn’t camped by a stream and there was nowhere to wash. She spun, staring at the forest but there were no more walkers to be seen, despite all the noise they’d made.

“Not bad,” Daryl said.

She whirled on him, still holding the knife in one shaking hand. “What the hell was that? You were supposed to teach me to fight, not feed me to them!”

“What did you think you was fightin’, a crash test dummy? You just laid down and waited for it to bite you!”

“I’m learning,” she hurled back. “What, were you just going to let me die because I screwed up my first try?”

“You call that trying?” His eyes flamed. “If you’re gonna curl up and take it when they come after you, you might as well die right here.” He stalked toward her, stabbing a finger into her face. “I’m not gonna keep you alive just so I can watch you die the first time I fuck up.”

He threw his arms out to the sides and she’d have flinched if she had any reaction left in her to give.

“You know how many times I fucked up in my life, Carol? You look at me like…” He stuttered to a stop, pain wrenching his face. “But I’m nothin’. _Nothin’,_ you hear me? You really gonna bet your whole life on some dumb Georgia redneck who never finished high school?” He backed away, shaking his head. “You’re better than that.”

Carol sucked in a breath, the truth behind his anger hitting her all at once. And like it always, as soon as he needed her, she steadied.

“ _You’re_ better than that.” She came after him, not letting him expand the distance between them. “Don’t you talk about yourself that way, like you really believe that’s all you are.” She paused, tried to order her chaotic thoughts. “But you’re right. I shouldn’t have relied so much on you. It’s not fair and like you said, I’m not your problem. I just…” She tilted her head, searching his face. “I’m not a fighter like you, Daryl. You can put a knife in my hand. Teach me to hold it. But whatever’s in you that makes you a survivor? I don’t think I have that.”

“Horse shit.” The anger flashed back into his face. “I saw you smash your husband’s face in with a pick axe. If you’d have done that when he was alive, everything he put you through coulda been over, just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Now, when you got a walker coming after you, and you’re scared and you just want it to be over?” He flicked the flat of the knife in her hand. “You make it be over.”

He threw the crossbow across his back and stalked off to hunt, leaving her standing, shocky and bloodstained, in the midst of the three walkers they’d killed.

#

Dinner that night was tense. Lori wouldn’t stop hovering, even after she helped Carol wash off the worst of the walker gore with bottled water. Hershel kept sending quiet, mildly disapproving looks across the fire to Daryl. And Daryl snapped at everyone who so much as looked at him, then went silent with a tension that made Carol’s stomach queasy every time she stole a glance at him.

Carol couldn’t get her thoughts straight enough for one to follow the other. She was jerking to check the forest at every sound, itching to smooth things over with Daryl and to scream at him all at once. And yet in the next minute she’d cycle right back to guilt, because she’d done this. She’d forced him to take care of her because when push came to shove, she kept folding. She didn’t know how to be any different.

So in the end, she did what she did best: nothing.

That night, when she finished washing what few dishes they still owned, she went back to her bedroll. Her footsteps slowed to a stop before she got there. Between her and the walker-ridden forest, where Daryl always slept, there was just the knife he’d given her. Driven into the earth all the way to the hilt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Next up, an intervention from an unwelcome party, a gift, and a reluctant smile.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Better**

Carol got up the next morning, her eyes grainy from lack of sleep, knuckles sore from gripping the knife all night. She packed as quick as she could, a black feeling bitter on the back of her tongue. But she heard the motorcycle engine fire up before she was ready anyway. She broke into a run, headed for the trucks, not caring who saw. She didn’t make it. He pulled out, leaving to scout the road, before she even had a chance to call his name.

She watched him through the windshield of Glenn’s truck all day. He looked so exposed out there on the motorcycle, rain soaking into his jacket, dripping off the leather of his vest. Every time he weaved around walkers, she stopped breathing.

It had never felt so vulnerable to her when she rode with him. He’d just lean his weight a little and the bike would speed past the threat. They slalomed through walkers like they were no more than cones. The closest one had ever come, Daryl just held up a fist and let the speed of the motorcycle carry it straight into the walker’s chest, knocking him down like a bowling pin dressed in rotting flesh.

But watching him do the same things, alone, from the safety of the truck, she could hardly blink.

He avoided her through the lunch break, but when they stopped for the night, she waited until he was alone by the trucks and then walked straight there, her steps long and quick.

She could see it in his posture when he heard her coming. He didn’t look up from the rag he was running over the wheels of his crossbow, keeping the gears clean.

“I’m ready for my second lesson.” She wasn’t. She had her hands clenched into fists inside her pockets, but she’d almost rather he feed her to another walker than wait through another night and day of his silence. She didn’t have much left. The bare thread she’d been clutching was starting to fray. “You coming, or not?”

His red rag had stopped moving. After a minute, he nodded. He didn’t look up.

“Walk south. Ten minutes from camp. Meet you there.”

She caught up a little breath, but then nodded. He couldn’t see that, so she forced herself to add, “Okay.”

It was another test. She hadn’t walked alone into the forest since they’d stopped looking for Sophia. Nothing else was enough to make her leave the precarious safety of the group and risk everything she might come across. Walkers usually staggered in at least groups of two or three. Sometime ten, fifteen. She wouldn’t last three breaths up against that. No one would stop them after the first bite, either. They’d tear her into sinews and chunks, her blood gushing out over their teeth as she screamed…

She took one more look at Daryl’s black leather vest, the outline of wings quiet against his back.

Checking the angle of the sun, she turned south and started to walk. The watch Ed had given her was in her pocket, and she pulled it out by one broken strap and checked when she thought it had been ten minutes.

Three.

She choked down more oxygen and moved her tingling feet forward. She passed an old pile of hair and guts. Red streaks on the trees. A bone, a little further. This forest was a slaughterhouse. Every forest probably was, nowdays. There was no such thing as a nature walk anymore.

How did Daryl stand it, when he went hunting?

There was no sign of walkers, though. Not a sound, a moan.

She checked her watch. Five minutes. Over her shoulder, camp was entirely out of sight. How far would her scream carry if she were attacked? But then, no one would make it to help in time. Her muscles bunched and she half turned back. She could just stay in camp. No one would force her to learn to defend herself.

But no, Daryl would be watching. She hadn’t heard a single ruffle of leaves, but she’d seen how quiet he could be, when he wanted. That crossbow could shoot 500 yards. He’d be covering her. This was a test, not a death sentence.

She walked slowly, her eyes flicking between her watch and the forest around her. As soon as it ticked over to ten minutes, she stopped. Checked the footing, kicked a rock out of the way that might trip her. Turned slowly in a circle. Way off in the trees, she saw movement. It wasn’t jerky, though. Smooth and coordinated, like a man in his prime.

Not Daryl, though. The clothes were too light, the walk too straightforward. He turned a lot when he walked. Went sideways, backwards. Sidled around trees. He slid through the forest like he was part of it, flowing like water, pausing to test the air like a fox.

Rick nodded to her when he stopped. “Daryl asked me to help you out. Said you wanted to learn to fight with a knife.”

She stared at him, but his blue eyes were calm today, without that frenetic edge of one of his bad days. As her anxiety slid away, she realized there were only two reasons Daryl might have sent Rick. He knew she didn’t trust their leader anymore. So maybe he thought she’d fight harder if she didn’t trust Rick to save her.

Or, Daryl knew he needed to let her make her choice, fight her own battle, but he couldn’t bring himself to watch her die. She dropped her head, staring at her blood-spattered sneakers, her belly twisting.

It was respect. He wouldn’t do it for her, and hell, maybe he even thought she’d fail. But he respected her enough to make her try.

Carol threw back her head and shouted, “Come on! Come and get me!”

Rick chuckled. “That’s one way to do it, I guess.”

She paced off the open spot in the clearing, fear pouring cold through her veins as she saw the first movement through the trees. She loosened her grip on her knife and looked Rick in the eye. “Do me a favor?”

He nodded. “Of course.”

“Don’t save me.”

#

That night, Carol laid out her blanket under the truck, sticking her hands out into the rain to wash the rest of the blood off them. It was old, black. Walker blood. Her blood was safe in her veins, her throat raw from screaming because during the third walker, she’d frozen again. Rick had broken his word and hauled the walker off her, but he did make her get up and finish it off.

The freezing rain trickled off her hands and into the dirt. She watched the man silently standing guard by the trees. The outline of the crossbow over his shoulder just another stripe of black in a forest constructed of branching shadows.

She slept.

#

He dodged her for the whole next day of traveling. But when she saw him heading off to hunt, she followed him right into the forest, ducking around in front of him when he didn’t stop.

“You pulled the walker off me,” she said. “When I faltered, you pulled it up so its teeth couldn’t reach me, and you held it there so it couldn’t bite while I tried to get up the guts to fight it.”

“I ain’t a murderer,” he spat at her. “Took you long enough to figure it out.”

He went to duck around her, and she touched his arm. He stilled. It wasn’t something they did. A pat on his shoulder, sometimes, if he was in a good mood. It was okay to touch on the bike. But not like this. Lingering, on bare skin. His bicep balled tight under her hand.

“I know you’re mad at me,” she said. “I’m not totally clear on why, but I know you are and I want you to know I understand why you did what you did. Two days ago, and yesterday, too, with sending Rick. I know you’re disappointed in me for not defending myself better.”

He flicked a sidelong look at her, tugging at the strap of his crossbow.

“But you can’t be more disappointed in me than I am every time I don’t see Andrea by that fire.” Tears sprang to her eyes, though she’d practiced this speech. She thought she could say her name without flinching. Daryl shifted his weight, boots creaking.

“I want to know if you can forgive me. Because having you around, having you as my _friend,”_ she emphasized the word because it sounded so wrong but she didn’t know what else to call him. A friend was someone you had coffee with. Not someone who made sure you were fed and tried to jolt you into living again. Who brought you a flower in a beer bottle because it was the only way he knew to carry hope. “You’re the only thing that’s making all this bearable. I’m trying, Daryl.” Her voice cracked. “I’m trying to learn to fight. Can we go back to the way things were? Please?”

He flicked his hair back, guilt flickering in his face. And a little bit of surprise. “Rained like hell last couple days. Didn’t think you’d miss being on the bike.”

She smiled, wiping tears away quickly. “Well, I did.”

He huffed a breath out through his nose, looking out at the trees beyond. “Come get soaked with me tomorrow then, suit yourself. I ain’t gonna stop you.”

“Are you going to train me? If you’re back from hunting in time? Rick gets the job done but he’s got no technique, no tips.”

It wasn’t exactly true. He micromanaged every one of her movements, but she didn’t understand the way he explained things, and half the time, his techniques didn’t work for her smaller build.

“Besides, he never yells at all.” She grinned, a little giddy that he was speaking to her again. “Deputy Rick’s got nothing on Drill Sergeant Dixon.”

“Hell.” He kicked a little at the dirt, looking pleased. “I ain’t never joined the military. Merle was always in the clink, in the marines. Dixons can’t take orders worth a shit. I’m no better.”

“You’re better,” she said softly, and she wasn’t talking about the way he listened to Rick, once the other man had earned his respect.

She wasn’t talking about Rick at all.


	4. My Knife

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: And next up, a cold night forces our favorite couple a little closer together. No Season 2.5 fic would be complete without a scene like that, and I promise I put my own little spin on it.

Carol staggered to her feet, hands braced against her knees as she gulped in air. The knife in her hand shook wildly, drops of blood falling from it to the leaves below. “How do you…do this…all the time?” she gasped. “Feel like I just sprinted a 10K.”

She gestured at the dead walkers laying around the clearing, her cheeks flushing with pride.

Daryl looked up from where he was sitting back against a tree, tying his broken boot laces together. “Do it day in and day out, you stop noticin’, I guess.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t be so humble.” She put her hand to her forehead, striking a mocking falsetto. “Killing walkers all day every day, whoa is me. Too tough to even bother break a sweat.”

He snorted, but she thought he looked a little amused.

She reeled a step, still trying to get her wobbly legs to keep their balance, and pointed her knife at him. “You didn’t even get up.”

He examined the boot laces, started threading them back into his boot. “You didn’t need me to. I could have gone off huntin’ and we could have had some actual meat for dinner tonight, ‘stead of wasting my time here.”

She scoffed, wiping grit-thick sweat off her forehead. “Right, except for when I dropped my knife during the fourth walker. Without you, I would have been the only meat on the grill tonight.”

He didn’t laugh at that, just frowned a little harder. “You’d have figured it out.”

She walked over and yanked his arrow out of the temple of the walker in question, wiping it clean on the grass before she walked it back over to him. “You’re not off tutoring duty yet, Drill Sergeant Dixon.”

He took the arrow, rolling to his feet in one of those graceful moments that made him look like he’d never sat in a chair a day in his life.

“When you’re fighting,” he said, and she stopped joking and listened. “Relax.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“When you stop breathing, you tense up. Freak out, start panickin’.”

“Grip the knife too hard and drop it,” she said.

“Exactly.” His face warmed. “You relax, take a little rest between walkers when you got the time, it gets like mowing down the grass. Gets easier. You waste less energy.”

“Right. Fighting for my life. It’s just as relaxing as mowing the grass on a sunny Sunday.” She rolled her eyes.

“Must be,” he said, shrugging into his crossbow. “You always get more relaxed after you kill you some walkers. Get funnier.”

“Yeah, well, you actually laugh at my jokes. Or at least smile a little. That’s more than my husband ever did.” She checked the knife, thinking it over. She’d been the funny one, back in high school. When had that gone away?

“Yeah well…” Daryl nodded toward the dead walkers. “Given the competition these days, you’re pretty damn funny.”

“Ha ha,” she said sourly, and a little smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, like he was pleased his joke hit home.

She couldn’t help a smile, but she looked away so she wouldn’t make him uncomfortable with too much attention. Instead, she sighed down at her knife hilt. “It gets so slippery with blood after a while.”

“Sweat, too,” Daryl said. “In a long fight.”

“I didn’t expect that.”

“Yeah, it’s a bitch.” He grabbed the knife from her, looked it over, handed it back. “I might be able to wrap the handle in leather for you or something. I’ll keep an eye out, see what I can find.”

“I better let you go before it’s dark,” she said. “You could probably try for a hunt if you’re quick.”

He was already shifting his weight, eager to be off, but he looked at her. “You okay walking yourself back to camp?”

She looked up at him with a smile, warmed that he was back to watching out for her. “Why, you gonna walk me home so you can try for a kiss on the porch?”

A deep ruddy hue touched his dusty neck. He huffed. “Oughta leave you for the walkers, mouth on you.”

She winked, pleased. “Try for rabbit, would you? It’s the perfect mix of tender and savory.”

“You mean greasy.”

“I mean good. Why didn’t they serve it at restaurants, before? I mean, who knew rabbit was so good? ”

Daryl looked pleased, but he just scuffed his boot along the ground. “Anybody with a bow who couldn’t afford beef, that’s who.”

“Well, nobody on earth can afford beef now that cows are so slow and walkers are so fast. So go ‘can’t afford’ us some rabbit, hmm?”

He bobbed a nod, as close to light-hearted as Daryl ever got. “See what I can do.” He took off with almost a strut to his step and she hugged herself, smiling after him.

Daryl liked being needed. Which was good, because these days, there weren’t too many minutes of the day when the group wasn’t looking to him for something. Scouting through a snarl of dead cars on the road, clearing a house before they slept, finding water or dinner or once, wild onions Carol used to spice up that night’s beans and squirrel.

He’d gotten quieter after Merle left, but Rick asked his opinion on a lot of things, now that he wasn’t shouting it to the whole world like a challenge. When he had an opinion, he gave it. Usually something straightforward but about three steps ahead of where the rest of them were considering. And when he didn’t care one way or another, he just shrugged and told Rick to make a play and he’d back it.

She wasn’t used to that. To a man not having to be in charge or pretending to know everything. She wasn’t used to a man checking her expression with quick, sidelong looks because he cared what she was feeling. Or the way he paid attention when she talked, as if she might be saying something interesting.

Abruptly, Carol realized she couldn’t make out his shoulders against the trees anymore. She’d waited too long and now she’d have to walk the ten minutes back to camp truly alone. Her breath caught for a just a second and then she remembered what he’d said about breathing. She relaxed her shoulders, dried the hilt of her knife, and set out through the forest.

#

Three days later, she finished up dishes in the soot-smeared sink of a burned out police station. It wasn’t much for shelter, but the walls made it more defensible, and that was nice. She stretched and made her way back to where they’d made a fire in an old trash can lid. Daryl was already asleep, his blankets next to hers alongside the fire and one denim-clad arm slung over his eyes to block the light.

She paused before lying down, because there was a little package on top of her pack, wrapped in some kind of old booking form. She glanced at Daryl, suddenly not so sure he was asleep. She sat down and unwrapped the paper, the glint of metal peeking through. It was a silver set of brass knuckles…no a knife! Long, and sharp, the handle made to be gripped with each finger through a loop of metal.

“Daryl,” she breathed out, astonished.

“Won’t drop it,” he said. When she looked over, he was on his side, head propped on his pack and not pretending to sleep anymore. He pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Make you pack a hell of a punch, if you want to hit somethin’, too.” He smirked, like there was some joke she wasn’t in on. “Saw it in the evidence room in back, thought it looked like you.”

She slipped her fingers in, and to her surprise, it fit her hand just right. And as she gripped the metal, its strength seemed to seep up her arm. It was the tool of someone who defended themselves often enough to have a preference about their choice of weapons.

Which was right, wasn’t it? She hadn’t killed just one walker. Sometime last week, she’d lost count. They went through whole training sessions when Daryl never had to intervene, and the last time walkers had attacked in the night, she’d dispatched one of her own, even managing to knock him to the side so he wouldn’t die on top of Carl’s blankets.

This was _her_ knife.

“Thank you,” she whispered, looking up at him. Daryl’s blue eyes were dark and steady in the firelight, but he just shrugged.

“It fit you. I just brought it to ya, that’s all.”

That was right, she realized. He hadn’t stabbed the walkers for her. He’d just put the knife in her hand, and kept putting it back there until she started to believe she could use it.

“Like I said.” Carol smiled. “Thank you.”


	5. First Thing that Pops Up

The deeper into winter they got, the more Carol forgot what it felt like to be warm. It seemed like her body had always been stiff, muscles aching with fatigue even when they weren’t wracked with shivers. Her skin prickling or burning before it went numb.

She had two blankets now, scavenged from the last house, and even that wasn’t enough. She laid on her side and balled her knees to her chest, staring out at the blackness beyond the truck she slept under. It was so dark she couldn’t tell if her eyes were closed or open, but her ears could discern the slap of sleet against the ground. Moisture clung to her face from where her breath billowed out, creating invisible clouds.

If walkers attacked tonight, she wouldn’t even be able to see where to stab.

She touched the flashlight by her backpack-pillow. The freezing steel of her knife next to it. All their batteries were near-dead, but if she needed it, the light would be better than nothing. She hoped it would be enough. Her ragged fingernails clicked across the knife as another round of shivers wracked her.

Something touched her blankets, and she jerked, rolling to see the threat. 

“Can’t sleep with your damn teeth chattering away so loud,” Daryl grumbled, tucking his quilt over the top of hers. “I’ll go walk around for a bit.”

She caught his wrist, her hand so numb she couldn’t quite latch on. “It’s sleeting like crazy. You’ll never dry out again if you go out there.”

“ ‘Nother hour, it’ll get cold enough to turn to snow,” he said. “Snow don’t get you as wet.”

“You can’t see, but I’m glaring at you,” she whispered.

He just grunted.

“Take your blanket back,” she hissed, skinning her knuckles on the truck’s undercarriage as she tried to toss it back over him.

“Quit.”

She grabbed him when he tried to scoot away, holding the blanket over the top of him.

He made a sound through his teeth. “Stubborn woman.”

“Share them with me,” she said. “Come on, three blankets is better than two.” She fussed for a minute, laying one out beneath them and two over the top. As soon as he was inside her blanket, she could feel the heat of him radiating, but Daryl himself lay stiff as a chunk of wrecked car, his arms clapped to his sides. She poked him in one arm. “Quit being shy,” she ordered. “We can’t afford modesty these days. Come on, I promise I won’t cop a feel.”

She couldn’t see his expression change, but she knew it did.

Once, she would have said it felt blasphemous, the pride she got from teasing a smile out of him. She hauled his backpack over next to hers and curled onto her side facing him, tucking the blankets in at her back so no drafts would get in. His heat warmed the blankets, but the farther away it got from him, the colder it was.

He didn’t move.

Carol tried to relax, listening to his breathing to decide if he’d gone back to sleep. He hadn’t. After a while, she risked inching a little closer to his side, a shiver taking her as soon as she moved.

He exhaled. “Sum bitch.” He grabbed her and muscled her around so she was laying on her other side.

She frowned at his roughness, wiggling a little. “What are you doing?”

His big arm went around her chest, his wrist half-squishing one breast as he clamped her back into his chest.

“Warmer like this,” he muttered. His hand fussed at something on his chest, tickling her back, and then the sides of his jacket peeled open and she was right against the buttons of his shirt.

Heat.

She sighed, melting into it. As soon as she relaxed, her bottom curved into his crotch and they both jerked apart.

“Quit bein’ so _shy_ ,” he spat out, with heavy sarcasm.

“That was before you copped a feel,” she retorted.

“You’re a pain in my ass, you know that?”

“Actually I’m not, but if I wiggle a little more, you might be a pain in mine.”

His long-suffering sigh riffled the hair on the back of her neck. “Would you shut up and go to sleep?”

She laughed, her chest shaking under his arm. “And miss my one joy in this frostbitten graveyard of a world?”

He kicked a little, wrapping the blanket more securely over her feet. “Fuck, it’s cold. Was it this cold last winter?”

“So now you want to talk about the weather? I was going to just talk about the first thing that popped up.”

She wasn’t entirely joking, because despite the bitter temperature, she could already feel the thickening ridge of him beneath his pants. She knew if he got embarrassed enough about it he’d take off into the sleet and get himself a good, stubborn case of hypothermia.

It wasn’t his fault. Or even hers, probably. Nobody but Glenn and Maggie had gotten laid in months, and a man in times like this would probably get hard spooning with a tractor tire.

“ ‘Nother damn joke and I’ll let ya freeze.”

“If that’s like a last meal, I better make it a good one. Let me think on it.” She re-settled his arm over her side, but when his hand brushed the bottom of one breast, he stiffened all over again. “Quit. I’m not going to make you buy me flowers.” She reached back and patted his thigh, pulling it forward so his legs matched the curve of hers. Their heat blended softly all the way down their bodies now. She sighed. “Better, right?”

He didn’t move.

“It’s just me, Daryl,” she whispered. “Stop. I’m serious.” She slipped one hand into the cuff of his coat and he jumped when he felt the chill of her fingers. “See? It’s winter. We’re cold. It doesn’t have to be awkward if you don’t read more into it than that.”

“Y’alright?” he whispered. “Really? We can get up, start the heater in one of the trucks. We ain’t got much gas but we could take the bike tomorrow, try to find somewhere to siphon from. If you frostbite somethin’, there ain’t no getting it back and you won’t be able to run iffn you need to.”

“I’m okay. Cold, but not dangerously so. I can still feel my feet.”

“Keep wagglin’ your toes,” he ordered. “Don’t go to sleep till they’re warm.”

“Yes, Drill Sergeant Dixon.”

He took her hand and drew it up and back, burrowing it under the collar of his coat and shirt. His neck was so warm she caught her breath. His pulse thumped quickly underneath her palm.

He held it there, warming her hand while she struggled to remember how operate her lungs.

 _Don’t read too much into this,_ she warned herself.

They were in this mess together, her and Daryl. That’s all. Anything more than that would send him hightailing into the night. Besides, she didn’t even know if she wanted all that again.

Men, with their jealousies and demands, and her always trying to read the real meanings behind what they said. Trying to make them happy. The idea exhausted her, and making it through this winter was already taking everything she had.

The stirring of hormones would just have to be ignored. No matter how good it felt to have a wide set of shoulders behind hers. No matter how much she wanted to rock her bottom back a little more firmly into the bend of his hips.

He moved her hand to the other side of his neck, warming the back now. “You get too cold any night, wake me up. Don’t try to gut it out. If you cain’t run, you won’t make it out here.”

“I can handle it.”

He blew a short, disgusted sound. “You’re plenty stubborn, Carol. But you’s little and you ain’t getting much food. You can’t make any more heat than you make. Carl neither. Or Hershel. We need to find more blankets. Better clothes. A damn roof where the walkers don’t all pile in after a night or two.”

“Stop worrying,” she said, her eyes drifting closed as the heat lulled her exhausted muscles down toward sleep. “We’re okay tonight, Daryl. I’m okay.” She patted his neck and took her warmed hand back. “Thank you.”

He grunted in response, searching for her other, still frozen hand. When he found it, he shoved up her shirt and stuffed both their hands under the waistband of her pants. “Keep your hand in there when you sleep, or ‘tween your knees. Fingers frostbite easy. Keeps ‘em warmer.”

“I’m not saying a single thing,” she said dryly as he removed his hand from her pants, leaving hers in there.

“Good.”

“Not one thing.”

“Stop.”

“Daryl?”

He made a questioning sound, the breath of it tickling the back of her neck.

“Goodnight,” she whispered, using her warmed hand to pat his thigh and trying not to think about how good the firm muscles felt.

“’Night,” he grunted. He didn’t shift back, and she held herself very still so she wouldn’t wriggle any closer. There was plenty of warmth beneath their blankets now, but it was a long time before either of them slept.


	6. The Velveteen Rabbit and the Shooting Gallery

A house.

It wasn't much. Two stories with a roof that was leaking into the bathroom, and eight walkers had wandered in just in the hour since they'd arrived. But they'd pushed so long today, Maggie had complained Daryl was trying to lead them all the way to Canada.

Carol knew he wasn't looking for Canada. He was looking for shelter.

She set her backpack just inside the door of the room she'd claimed for the night. Was he determined to find them someplace warmer because he was worried about the kids and Hershel? Or did he just want to avoid another awkward night of sharing her blankets? She ducked her head, itchy heat crawling up her neck when she thought of the dreams she'd had last night after she finally fell asleep.

Normally, it wouldn't have bothered her to have a dirty dream, but if Daryl knew what she'd been thinking, he'd be embarrassed. That made her uncomfortable. She never thought she'd be the kind of woman to chase after an unwilling man.

Not that she was chasing. She rubbed a hand over the back of her neck, dusting her palm against her pants when it came away gritty. She was just...thinking. And not even really that. An urge wasn't a plan, or even a wish. It was just that. An _urge._

She swallowed and went across to the closet, opening it to check for any clothes they could scavenge. They desperately needed warm socks. Hats. A thicker coat for Daryl if she could find anything he'd wear. Some days she thought he'd probably wear a tarp for a cape and hardly notice, and then she'd bring him something like a blazer and he'd stare at her like she'd asked him to dye his hair pink.

Where was he going to sleep tonight? The bed was a double, and they normally slept near each other, but somehow she didn't think he'd follow her into a room. It was different, somehow, when there were walls.

Boundaries.

"Hey."

She jumped guiltily, and took a second to school her expression before she turned. Why did it suddenly feel so weird to be in a bedroom with Daryl?

"Sorry. Kind of got out of the habit of knocking," he said.

"You didn't scare me. I was just lost in my thoughts, didn't hear you coming." Her eyes narrowed. "What do you have there?"

He was standing in the doorway, both hands behind his back. "Guess."

"A leg of lamb and DVDs of all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

"Who the hell'd wanna see that? Chick named Buffy probably wouldn't last five seconds in a herd o' walkers."

"I don't know. Buffy was pretty tough." She crossed her arms. "You gonna show me, or did you just come up here to tease?"

He pulled out both hands with a flourish, brass rattling against cardboard as he shook the two boxes of bullets. "Found a little .243 hunting rifle down in the living room with a scope. Probably meant for a lady, because it's just the right length for your arm. Not too heavy." He held up one of the boxes, starting to smile. "And hollowpoints for the 9mm auto I've been hauling around. One of those is all it takes to liquefy a whole walker brain."

She didn't follow half of what he just said, but watching his eyes dance made her want to keep listening. "You get this excited about handgun ammo, I'd just about have to give you some privacy if you found shotgun shells."

"Stop."

She touched his arm, then dropped her hand because his muscles felt a little too nice against her skin. "It's just good to see you happy."

"You wanted ammo," he said. "Said you wanted to learn to shoot, right?"

"Whenever you think I'm ready, sure."

"Well, I got a surprise for you tomorrow morning. Get some sleep." He left, the red rag in his back pocket waving like a bullfighter's cape. She tried not to follow it with her eyes.

Failed.

#

Carol flipped over in bed, pulling the sheet up over her shoulder. It was still early, but it had been dark outside for hours and they didn't have the batteries or the candles to sit up. She could use the extra sleep. There was no reason to be so restless. Or to feel so lonely in a houseful of people.

It was the damned walkers. Their groans had been attracting more ever since they'd stopped for the night, and now that everybody was in bed and not constantly thinning them out, their moans had gotten louder. More numerous. She thought she'd feel safer with walls around her, but it just gave the walkers something to bang on.

She yanked a pillow over her head. There must be more farms around here, for there to have been so many dead nearby. She didn't know how the hell they were going to make it out to the cars in the morning. Whatever surprise Daryl had planned was surely cancelled now.

The thought made her punch her pillow again. It's not like he had the energy or time to trouble himself with anything extra these days. For a surprise to be spoiled before she even found out what it was seemed like the height of unfairness.

Where was he sleeping? He hadn't taken a room and T-dog was snoring from the living room couch. Had he even gotten a bed? It wasn't fair, him sleeping on the floor when he'd worked so hard to find them a house tonight. She swung her legs out of bed.

If he was still awake, she'd haul this mattress onto the floor and he could have that. She'd take the box spring. Of course, they couldn't drag it into the hall without waking the others, so they'd have to share the room.

She pushed the thought out of her head. Not relevant.

She eased the doorknob open as quietly as she could and tiptoed out into the hall. As soon as she saw him, a smile crept onto her face. She should have guessed where he'd end up.

He sat at the top of the stairs, a clear bowshot through the open railing to the door below. The one with the most walkers piled up against it. His forearms rested on his knees but his head came up right away, tracking her movements as she tiptoed down the landing and joined him.

She sat down without waiting for an invitation. He tipped his head in question, and she shook hers.

They sat together, listening to the moans. The thump of haphazard hands against the siding, the door.

She'd have felt better with the heat of his shoulder against hers, but she had sat down a hand's width apart from him. If she scooted closer now, it would mean something. She didn't know what, but something. More than they could handle. Certainly more than he would want.

Glass cracked.

Her hand flew to his thigh, gripping hard. Her knife was back in the bedroom. Why had she left her knife behind? Stupid.

" 'S alright," Daryl said in his low rumble, not getting up. "Rick boarded over the glass in that door. Those panes are on the outside."

She let go of his leg, mildly embarrassed at her own reaction. What good was that was going to do, holding onto his leg? Slow him down from actually being able to fight, that's all.

"I can't sleep with the sound of all of them out there." She shook her head, so tired of thinking about walkers. "Let's talk about something else."

"Like what?"

"Anything. Tell me a story."

"I don't know no stories." He blew a disgusted sound. "Except dumb shit Merle done. Shit I done. Stories about methheads and drunks, mostly." He picked at his fingers, his back hunched tiredly.

He needed sleep, sometime. Somehow.

She wanted to smooth her hand down his back. A week ago, she would have done it without thinking. Why was it different now? Did _he_ think it was different?

"You're a mom. You should know lots of stories."

She blinked at his use of present tense. But then, she supposed none of her mom knowledge had died along with her daughter. Just her heart.

"I could tell you Sophia's favorite story," she said.

He looked over, but in the dark she couldn't make out anything about his expression. Just the focus of his eyes on her face. She could always tell when he was really listening.

He nodded.

"Lay back." She nodded to his wadded-up blanket behind them. "I always read it to her before bedtime. It's called 'The Velveteen Rabbit.'"

"Ain't heard that one." He laid down, his feet still propped on the first stair and his head on his blanket. He tossed over the other end for her to use as a pillow, and she took it, breathing in his scent of leather and blood and sweat and trees.

She quickly fell into the familiar rhythm of the story and found herself doing all the voices, just like she had for Sophia. It felt a little silly for telling a story to a grown man, but he never interrupted, not once.

But when she finished, he scoffed. "What the hell kind of story is that to tell your kid?"

Her forehead creased, and a faint echo of hurt touched her throat. "What do you mean?"

"What, like you ain't real unless somebody loves you?" He sat up. "That's some dumbshit marker of what's right. Kid can't help where he gets stuck. Who he gets stuck with."

She sat up, too, ducking her head to try see his downturned face. "It's not meant like that, Daryl. Not like a contest. It's more like, you get more courage when someone else believes in you."

He looked over quick, then away.

"Like you believed I could fight," she said softly, "even before I did."

His head hung low and he was back to picking at his fingers. She almost said, "Like I believed in you." But she didn't want to push him too hard. The unease was still pouring out of him.

She sat with him for an endless, quiet moment. Even the rattling of the walkers faded into the background as her ears strained for some sound from him. Some indication that he wasn't as hurt as she feared he was. She didn't know how to explain to him that he _was_ loved. There didn't seem to be a safe way to do it.

"I do think," she said hesitantly, "that you get to feeling more real the more loved ones you have. Like it ties you into this world."

He tipped his head then, his fingers going still as he looked at her for a long time in the dark.

"You should get some sleep," she whispered when she couldn't take it anymore. She didn't know what he needed from her in that moment and she was too scared to give him the wrong thing.

He nodded.

She looked down at their feet, lined up side by side. His laces mismatching where he'd had to swap out his broken ones. She hated to leave him here, when she wasn't sure if he was still hurt by her bad choice of a story. The banging of the walkers outside already seemed louder. But she couldn't think of any justification that would make it appropriate to sleep out here rather than in the room she'd picked. She got up. His gaze tracked her, but he said nothing.

She brushed her fingers over his crossbow, one last glimpse of comfort to help her get to sleep. In her peripheral vision, she thought she saw him shiver, but when she looked over again, he was still. Didn't mean anything. It was chilly, even inside the house.

She nodded, feeling stupid and childish, and forced her feet down the long hallway back to her room for the night. 

#

The next morning, everybody was packed up by dawn. Carol was twitchy from another sleepless night and the increasing volume of the moans from the buildup of walkers outside. But Daryl was flitting from room to room with something in his walk that could very nearly be described as a bounce.

She squinted at him. "You find a stash of coffee or something?"

He ignored her, looking to Rick. Their leader gave him a nod.

Carol crossed her arms. "You want to decode the nonverbals for the rest of us, or was that a classified manly nod?"

"You want the last bite of my oatmeal?" Lori offered.

Carol shot her a look. "I'm not cranky. I'm just asking."

"Time to shoot," Daryl said, scooping up two rifles and jamming a pistol into the back of his pants.

"Right _now_?"

Rick stepped up. "Daryl thought if you practiced in the mornings before we moved on, then if the sound drew more in, it wouldn't matter."

"That is..." Carol stopped. "A really good point. Why haven't we been doing that all along?"

"Common sense. Don't take no brains." Daryl was already halfway up the stairs. "You comin'?"

Carol glanced around to see if anybody else was taking a lesson.

"Have fun!" Maggie called. "Try not to shoot off anything you might need later."

Carol made a face at her and hurried up the steps when no one else responded. She followed the noise of breaking glass to an upstairs window. Daryl leaned in, a rifle to his shoulder as he tested the angle down to the front door. Satisfied, he sat back, pointing out different parts of the rifle to her.

"Magazine. Safety. This is a bolt action. This one, you just pull the trigger again." He opened and closed each of the rifles and the pistol, showed her where the bullets went in, made her load an extra magazine for both. Showed her the sights for one rifle, the crosshairs in the scope for the other. "There's plenty of walkers. Shoot as many as you can, then reload as fast as you can and shoot more. Reloading's when you die. Get good at it."

"Careful. I'm not sure my sweet tooth can handle that much sugar coating." She pulled the rifle to her shoulder, ignoring whatever dire homicide-promising look he probably just gave her. The crowd of walkers outside was nauseatingly large.

"Don't hold your breath," Daryl said. "And don't go yanking on that trigger. Squeeze it steady and slow."

This was a lot more instruction than he normally gave her. She shot him a look, but couldn't tell if he was nervous. He almost sounded nervous. He was biting at his cuticles, looking toward the far wall.

"Was that story really Sophia's favorite?" he asked abruptly.

Carol's finger jerked and she nearly shot a hole in the wall. "Yes. Why?"

He shrugged, sinking deeper into silence. She could tell he was thinking something over, but had no idea what. Probably deciding she was a bad mom for telling her daughter a story about toys only becoming real when they were loved. But she loved her daughter ferociously, every single day of her life. Sophia knew that. It's why she liked the story.

Carol pulled the rifle to her shoulder. She couldn't afford to be distracted by the man at her side. Someday, his life might depend on her not being distracted.

"Ready?" she asked.

"Those walkers ain't getting any younger."

She pulled the trigger. The reverberation of the rifle in the small room was so loud she jumped, and the shot went wide.

"Shoot them trucks and Rick's gonna kill both of us."

"Shut up." She racked the bolt action, popping another bullet into the chamber and sighting cautiously. _POP_. A walker dropped and she perked up. "I got one!"

"Make it ten and I'll light ya some fucking birthday candles."

She racked in another shell. "Watch it, Dixon. You're going to give Beth a run for her money on who's the most likely to start waving pom poms around here."

"You talk this much every time you's killin' walkers, ya won't be having 'nother birthday to light candles for."

Her throat tightened as she wrestled with the bolt action, but she swallowed and spat out, "Wanna make that a bet? I win, I'll make you bake the birthday cake."

She popped off the rest of the shots in the magazine, felling two more walkers. He handed her the second rifle. At this range, with it resting against the window, her aim was steady and true. She started bringing down a walker for every two shots, then two walkers for every three shots. By the time she ran out of bullets, she was grinning.

"Reload!" bellowed Daryl, leaping to his feet.

She jumped and dropped the rifle.

"You tryin' to shoot off my fucking _foot_ , woman? Reload!"

She grabbed for a new magazine and tried to jam it in, but she'd forgotten to take the old one out.

"The hell you doing?" He kept shouting at her, full volume as she fumbled and busted a fingernail and forgot where the magazine release was.

Finally she dropped the gun and glared at him. "How long are you going to keep yelling at me?"

"Till you start yelling back," he said tersely.

Her nerves started to ebb away, and her frazzled brain kicked back into gear. "You're such a nag."

She double-checked the magazine, lifted her gun, and fired.

"Just shoot the walkers, woman," he said, and she was pretty sure she could hear a smile in his voice. "Quit yer whinin'."

They moved windows once for a new angle, and when the last walker fell, a whistle came from downstairs. Daryl snatched up the spare rifle and slung it over his shoulder, taking her gun and trading her the handgun. "Stay close."

He led the way down the stairs. The rest of the group already had the door open, packing their gear into the cars. When she ran out, though, she jolted to see the walkers weren't cleared out. From two sides of the house, yes, but they were already staggering around from the rear of the property, more filtering in from the woods. This whole area was infested.

Daryl ran into the back of her, his weight nearly knocking her down. "Plant yer feet," he said, low and terse. There was no shouting, no show of cleaning his fingernails. He was deadly serious and it ran a shiver up her spine. "They's harder to hit with a handgun. You've gotta be calm, you gotta shoot straight. Don't fuck around."

She turned to face the walkers, her heart pounding as she aimed. She squeezed off a shot, and blood spurted from the neck of the first walker. It just kept coming. Her eyes flared. She blasted off three more rounds, hit nothing but air.

"There's too many! Why isn't anybody else shooting?"

She threw a glance over her shoulder. The cars were already running and pointed toward the street, bags loaded. Their entire group was spanned out behind them, guns in hand and lowered, ready to back her up.

Hershel gave her a quiet nod. "Go ahead," he said. "Take your time."

A strange kind of strength swept into her. She couldn't have named it, because she'd never felt it before.

"Carol." Daryl's voice snapped her head around, and the first walker was barely two steps away.

She covered its face with the barrel of the gun and shot. It went down and she snapped her sight to the next one.

The gun clicked empty. Her heart squeezed, her stomach heaving up into her throat.

"Kick out that mag," Daryl said, very low.

She hit the button and the spent magazine fell to the ground. He swooped it up and started refilling it with bullets as she slapped in her second pre-loaded one.

Everything in the world shrunk down to the world of her sights and she kept reloading and shooting, shooting and reloading. When her hands started to shake from fatigue, her hand sore from the kick of the gun, Daryl grunted, "Steady yourself on a truck when you can. Or a tree. There's generally always a tree."

She glared, tossing him another empty magazine and slamming in a full one. "You see a damned tree?"

"Lean on me," he said, already finished loading the magazine. He crossed his arms, standing solid.

"Won't two people waver even more than one?"

He shook his head. "Two's better 'n one. Fixes it, somehow."

She rested her extended arms against his shoulder. His skin was warm and bare, because he hadn't had a chance to pull on his jacket this morning. She blinked, and the walkers were already too scary close again. She shot, and two walkers went down instead of one.

"Carl!" Rick warned. "It's Carol's turn."

"That one was close!"

"Wait your turn, Carl. You can shoot when I say."

In spite of the bodies piled at their feet, Carol and Daryl swapped a quick look, and she smirked. The next three walkers went down as smooth as if she were a professional, and that was the end of them.

Someone started to clap, slowly. Then one more joined in, and another, and by the time Carol turned around, they were all applauding.

Maggie grinned. "That was better than breakfast theatre."

"Hell, even better than breakfast," Glenn said.

"Nice shootin'." Hershel's eyes were kind, as if he'd known all along she could do it.

"Good teacher," she said, sending a look sideways.

Daryl looked startled, pausing as he gathered up the rifles, getting their straps all tangled with the crossbow already on his back.

"When he starting in yelling at y'all upstairs, I thought for sure you were going to shoot him." Beth grinned.

"You owe me your dessert, next time we find some," Carl said.

"It wasn't a real bet!" Beth argued. "I mean, I didn't think she'd _shoot_ him shoot him. Just smack him a little or somethin'."

"Kids are taking bets on when I'll shoot you." Carol elbowed Daryl as they all made their way toward the trucks. "Apparently your winning personality is really getting you a reputation."

"Smart kids," Rick said, straight-faced.

Daryl flicked him a raised middle finger, and Rick smiled.

Carol stuck her new handgun in her jacket pocket as they got to the motorcycle. "Did you see all those walkers I shot? What was all that whining about what a terrible shot I was going to be?"

"Used half the bullets in the damned universe, too," he griped as he passed off the rifles to Glenn to put in the truck. "We wanna kill a walker for the next month, we gotta stab it with a stick."

She poked him in the side. "Would it kill you to say you're proud of me?"

"What's it matter what I think? You ain't dead. You wanna trophy?"

She smirked. "Don't get too sappy on me, Dixon, or I might shed a tear."

He huffed out a chuckle, looking like it was mostly against his will. Lori came over and slapped her a solid high five. Daryl took the opportunity to fist a couple of handfuls of bullets out of his pockets, dropping them into the motorcycle saddle bags.

"I saw that," Carol said as Lori walked away. "Thought I'd need more bullets than I did, didn't you?"

"Shut up."

"You can deliver my trophy to #1 Motorcycle Way. Seat B. I'll sign for it." She batted her eyelashes.

Daryl's gaze paused, flicked a little lower. But before she could decode that look, he slung a long leg over the motorcycle. "I ain't got all day. You comin'?"

She grinned.

"Don't say it, or you ain't ridin'."


	7. Socks

Camp had come early tonight. It kept getting dark earlier and earlier, and a few hours ago, Carol had seen Daryl pull Rick aside. Telling him he needed more time to hunt, maybe. _Probably,_ considering he took off into the woods before the bike engine even had a chance to cool.

She hated him going into that death-infested forest alone. There was no arguing, though, that when he took anybody else with him, they didn’t come back with game as often. Everyone else was too loud.

Her stomach gave an ugly grumble and she looked up from the seam of Carl’s shirt she was trying to mend. Sunset was starting to wash out of the sky in fading purple fingers and he still wasn’t back. She stared at the trees until her vision began to blur. It was too hard, never knowing which day might be the one that carried final disaster.

Something moved beyond the trees and a sting of pain alerted her to the fact that she’d clamped her hand shut on her needle. She glanced to warn Rick, but he was already watching, too. The movement was too smooth, though. Too graceful to be a walker, and too casual to be an attack.

Daryl’s broad shoulders took shape, a darker black in a whole forest of twilight grays. She wiped the droplet of blood on her pants and swallowed against a dry mouth. After he’d been gone this long, she’d been so sure he’d have bagged something big. A fox, maybe even a deer.

Daryl started to shake his head, but Rick was already turning away. Daryl’s step stuttered a little before he found his stride again. He dropped his crossbow next to her without a word, went over to the bike to mess with the saddlebags.

Carol started counting the cans they had left. Only one can for each group of three, tonight. No one complained. No one said much of anything.

She took the can of peas from T-dog when he finished his third, trying not to be obvious when she checked if he’d taken more than his share. He glared at her, and she glanced away, carrying the can over to where Daryl was roaming amongst the cars. Half-pacing, fidgeting with their gear.

“What are you doing?”

“Stuff,” he growled. “Go back to the fire.”

“Something happen when you were out hunting?” She tried to check for fresh blood but his clothes were already black and deep brown with old layers of it.

It reminded her of camo. A hysterical giggle rose in her throat as she thought about the camouflage they used to sell in stores, the kind country boys upholstered their truck seats in. Daryl hadn’t purchased a thing but he matched the forest like he was made for it. He smelled like trees and survival and all the layers of old blood on his clothes made him blend in with the slaughter of the wilderness just fine.

The smile faded from her face.

“What?” he asked her, not answering her question.

She fingered the edge of his vest, old dark stains tainting the lines of the wings on the back. “You need to stay in camp someday for more than five minutes when it’s still light enough to do laundry.”

He jerked away from her. “Cain’t waste the light. Everything’s all hunkered down for winter as it is. Like we oughta be.”

He grabbed the bed of the truck, leaning forward and letting his head fall. She took a step closer, but then he abruptly coiled, jerking the truck so it rocked on its shocks. He hauled back and kicked it ferociously. Once, twice, then slammed his fist into the truck so the metal banged and crashed. She winced at the racket it made, fear fluttering at what that might call in.

She caught his arm. “It’s not your fault.”

“No?” He caught sight of the half-empty can in her hand. “Then why the fuck you eating somebody’s old peas for dinner? People are supposed to stock up for winter. Prepare. Thought I was poor before all this but shit, we ain’t got nothin’!”

Carol propped the can on the tailgate and raised an eyebrow at him. In her experience, if she refused to get rattled, he’d sort of stall out after a while. His temper never lasted long without Merle around to keep him stirred up.

“You’re just grouchy because your feet are cold,” she said.

He scoffed. “What are you jawing on about? My feet are fine.”

“No, they’re not. All the bushes out in the trees are soaked and your shoes are probably wet through.” She grabbed his hand and sat down next to the truck. He followed her down, his gaze catching on their linked hands, then jumping away. She grabbed his bag from where he’d dropped it by the tire and started digging through it.

“What are you doin’?” He made a grab for it and she jerked it back.

“What, afraid I’m going to find your porn? If you had any, Carl would have been into it by now.” She came up with an extra pair of socks, waving them triumphantly before she grabbed his boots and started unlacing them.

He tried to tug them back. “My feet are fine,” he grumbled.

“They _ain’t_ ,” she said, throwing his word back at him.

He stopped struggling and snorted, shaking his head. She pulled off his boots and stripped off his socks, then tucked his feet up against her bare belly, pulling her shirt and jacket out to cover them.

She sucked in a breath. “Yikes! Told you they were wet. If we were any further north, you’d have caught frostbite by now.”

He stared at her, his shoulders hunching a little. “The hell you doin’? Your shirt’s gonna smell like feet.”

“If you think my shirt doesn’t already smell like feet, you haven’t gotten close enough.”

His expression lightened a little. “Why you think I run the motorcycle s’ fast?”

She slapped him lightly on the knee, mock scowling until a glimmer of laughter came into his eyes.

She glanced over her shoulder, back to where everybody was gathered around the fire, but nobody was paying them any mind. It was nice, having a moment just to them when the engine noise wasn’t too loud to talk.

“I used to do this for Sophia. When she got home from school in the winter. We couldn’t afford waterproof boots and her little feet would get so cold nothing else would warm them up.”

“That how you knew my socks were wet?”

She picked up one of the dirty ones and pelted him with it. “I know because you’re a pig. I never see you change your socks.”

The teasing won her the quirk of one of his small smiles, almost hidden in the shadows as he pulled his feet back, putting dry socks on before he jammed his boots back on.

She passed over the can of food, knowing he’d assume she already took her share. He dipped out peas fast enough to make her heart ache a little that she didn’t have anything else to give him. No wonder he was kicking the truck.

“We’re going to be all right, you know.” She crossed her legs and leaned her arms on them, her stomach still cold from the touch of his frozen feet. She smiled. “God knows you’re the wimpiest one of all of us. And I hear it’s a lot harder than this to kill a Dixon boy.”

He chuffed out a laugh, then shook his head, laughed again, and hooked an elbow over his knee as he gulped down the rest of the peas.

She nudged him. “You done with all your bellyaching now so we can go back to the fire? I’m freezing.”

“Wouldn’t be s’ cold if ya didn’t go sticking my dirty feet all over yo’self. That’s on you.” He rolled to his feet.

Carol smiled as he put his hand out, rough and blunt like it was no big deal. She may have had to be the one to sit him down, but it was him that lifted her back to standing. 

#

“Carol? Do you have a minute?”

She glanced at Rick, then stood up from where she’d been trying to figure how to stretch a can of corn and a shriveled apple to be breakfast for all ten of them. It involved a whole lot of staring and trying to figure out how not to cry.

He nodded away from camp. Her eyes narrowed, and she shot a look to where Glenn was trying to talk Maggie into something she appeared dead set against. Lori was arguing with Carl. T-dog slumped on a tailgate like he couldn’t remember their morning routine. Daryl was already gone, scouting the first part of today’s route.

She followed Rick, letting them get forty feet out from camp before she said, “Why do I get the feeling this is an official visit, Sheriff?”

“Sheriff’s deputy,” he corrected, then ran a hand over his beard, blowing out a breath. “I saw you last night, with Daryl.”

She folded her arms and raised both brows.

“By the cars at dinner.” Rick looked uncomfortable.

“I was warming his feet. I didn’t have my hand down his pants.”

Rick took a step back. “Whoa, hey…”

“Sorry.” She had to force the word out, because she knew it was the right thing to do, but she wanted to spit nails right now. “I didn’t have much to eat last night. I’m a little grouchy. But Daryl’s business is Daryl’s business and he’d be the first to tell you that.”

“Sure,” he agreed easily, running a hand over his neck and squinting up at her. “Look, I think you’re getting the wrong idea here. I think you’ve been nothing but good for Daryl. He’s kinder now, less volatile. More committed to the group. But I also think he maybe hasn’t had a lot of experience with women. And I think if things go bad between the two of you, he might not know how to handle it and the first thing he’d do is probably take off.” Rick looked her in the eye and she could see how much weight he’d lost in the hollows of his cheeks. “Without him, the group is weak.”

She gritted her teeth. “So what? I’m responsible for everyone’s lives now?” She waved a hand at her tangled gray hair. “I’m not some kind of temptress here, Rick. I got him to change his damn socks for once, which you should be thanking me for, since trenchfoot would take him out just as fast as a broken heart.” She took a step forward. “I don’t know what you think you saw, but I’m not playing any games.”

He held up both hands. “I know. All I’m saying is take it slow. Be sure. And be careful with him.”

Rick didn’t wait for her to snap at him again. Just turned and headed back toward camp with strides a little shorter, a little less steady than they’d been even a few months ago.


	8. Hunger

Carol stared at the empty racks. Blinked.

Light slunk through the convenience store windows in subdued shades of gray. Filtered through too many layers of dust, and an old brown smear of something ugly. One of the broken panes shot rainbows across the empty racks. Once, she might have run her fingers over the prismatic reflection. Traced the colors, one transforming brightly into another with such predictability. Like no matter the ugliness of the surface they fell upon, red always became orange became yellow. They were a group you could never break up, never damage.

But right now, all they made her think of was apples. Oranges. Bananas. The green of cucumbers and grapes and lettuce. Blueberries and—

“Hey.” The murmur came in low, along with the soft bump of a shoulder to hers. It was as close as Daryl ever got to a hug, she thought. Or at least, that’s what it felt like when he did it. She turned, trying to scrape up a smile for him, but it came out wan. Some days, the hunger didn’t even faze her, but today she felt like a thin piece of paper with a cold light shining all the way through it.

“Find anything?”

“Nah. Place is all cleaned out. Right on a main road like this, don’t know what else Rick was expectin’. Found some oil out back. Good for the cars.” He dropped his head, shook it, eyes a little vague. “What the hell am I sayin’? Stupid.”

She shook her head, a little laugh bubbling up. “I can’t string two thoughts together either. I was thinking about rainbows a minute ago.”

He snorted. “And puppies?”

“Hell.” She bent to check under one of the wire merchandise racks, poking at the dust bunnies. “If I saw a puppy now, I’d probably just wonder how to cook it.”

He chuckled, just a deep secret rumble she might not have heard if she’d been two steps further away.

“With ranch dressing,” she said and reached her hand up, because her head was whirling. He pulled her to her feet without her having to ask.

“What?”

“The puppy.” She quirked a smile. “Hey, if I’m gonna dream, I might as well dream big. I’d take my roast puppy with ranch dressing dip.” She let go of his hand, and as soon as she did, his face blurred a little sideways. She blinked again and caught her balance with a quick sideways step.

His brow creased. “You all right?”

“Fine. Stood up too fast.”

He dug in his pocket, handed over a familiar orange and yellow wrapper. It had a clear boot heel print on the front, one side burst open.

“You been holding out on me?” She shook two peanut butter cups out into her palm. One was smashed, with bits of lint and dust clinging to it, but the other was mostly unmolested.

“Found it behind the counter. Was gonna save it.” He jerked his chin toward her.

She held out the unsmashed one to him. “Thank you.”

“Eat it. You’re not saving it to give to Lori,” he said. “You gave her your breakfast, too. I saw you.”

“Three spoonfuls of corn. It’s not like it’s enough to make a difference one way or another for me.”

“If it’s not enough to make a difference, you shoulda ate it.”

She waved the second half at him again, insisting. “If you don’t eat half, I’m giving mine to Lori.”

He snatched it and popped it all in his mouth at once, chewing fast. She took hers in six bites. “You shouldnta gave me the clean one,” he said through a mouthful. “You know I don’t give a shit.”

“It was yours to begin with,” she said, taking one more bite and wishing she could taste this for days. She closed her eyes and tried to fix it in her memory. The melting of the chocolate. The savory-salty-sweet of the peanut butter that made saliva pool in her mouth.

When she finished it, she licked her lips and opened her eyes. Daryl’s eyes burned pale blue, a jolt going through her at how close he was. He turned away immediately, not even saying goodbye. But a second later, his boot heel squeaked on the floor and he spun back around. He reached out and caught her wrist.

The wrapper crinkled in her hand, her fingers closing automatically with her surprise.

“Carol,” he rasped, looking so hard at her that her heart stuttered and tripped in the second before she registered he wasn’t warning her of danger. He was just looking at her. But he also wasn’t letting go of her wrist.

He was close close close and her body must not be getting the no-danger message because her heart was pumping like it was time to run, and all of her skin flushed hot and then cold. This was not normal. Not him this close. Not him looking at her so dead on, with urgency in more than his eyes.

He’d been odd all day, she remembered suddenly. He’d been strangely lighthearted this morning, cracking deadpan jokes that got bolder and more irreverent the more times he got her to laugh. And then he went silent this afternoon, answering all her passing comments with grunts or nothing, making himself very busy everyplace she wasn’t.

“Daryl?” her voice came out weaker than she wanted, a flutter to it that was goddamn embarrassing. She was a grown woman, not some teenage bimbo.

He blinked and let her go. The next thing she saw was just his shoulders moving, all muscle under the wings of that vest as he headed for the door.

Her hand rose to her lips, pressed against them as if to tame the tingles. Ridiculous. He hadn’t kissed her. Hadn’t even barely touched her. But she was dizzier than before she’d eaten.

#

When they got to camp that afternoon, Daryl kicked his leg up in front and off the motorcycle before Carol had even had a chance to put her feet down. The other cars pulled up behind them.

“Going to hunt,” he grunted as he passed Rick getting out of the Hyundai.

“I thought you and Glenn were going to change the oil in all the vehicles tonight. I thought that was the whole reason we decided to make camp early.” Rick held his hands out. “It’s barely noon.”

Daryl spat on the ground. “Can’t eat cars. Fuck the oil.”

“You want water to take with you?” Carol called after him, but he shook his head. Didn’t even turn around.

She slumped forward on the motorcycle, folding her hands across the still-warm gas tank and laying her forehead on top of them. Had she looked at him wrong? Said something? What the hell had he been about to say to her in that convenience store?

She was exhausted, too tired to deal with men and their posturing bullshit. She just wanted a friend, that was all. Someone to share a peanut butter cup with, maybe a blanket and a dark joke about rainbows and puppy cannibalism. She didn’t want that extra little ripple of awareness that got stronger whenever he was within half the width of camp of her.

She didn’t want to make him unhappy.

“Everything okay?” Rick touched her back. “You guys have a fight or something?”

“I’m just tired, Rick.” She sat up. “And Daryl’s just Daryl. He’s never going to be Miss Congeniality, especially not with low blood sugar.” She got up. “I can change the oil in the trucks.”

“You can _what_?” He frowned. “You serious?”

“My dad taught me, about a hundred years ago. Ed would never let me touch our vehicles. Said I might screw them all up, so I might be a little rusty.” She found a smile for him, dropping a casual hand to the motorcycle handlebars when her head started to spin from standing. “But I’ll try not to break anything. Just keep the walkers off while I work.”

He nodded, looking into the forest after Daryl.

#

Carol sat on the bed of the truck, scrubbing at her hands with a rag. The oil wouldn’t come out of her cuticles, no matter how hard she rubbed. She could see the black marks even in the faint glow of the distant fire, though the moon hadn’t risen yet.

Lori came up, hugging her coat around her. “Thanks for doing all the trucks. You should come back to the fire and get warmed up. He’ll be back soon.”

“That’s what you said at sunset.”

“He will, Carol.” Rick came up behind his wife, his hand lifted as if to rest on her shoulder, but then it fell back to his side. “Come on, it’s Daryl. It’s not the first time he’s stayed out for a night. Things come up, he has to go further than he thinks, detour around walkers. Maybe he got too big of a kill to get it home tonight. But he always comes home.”

“Or he gets injured, or trapped by a herd moving through.” She glared. “We’re his group. We ought to be looking for him.”

“Daryl doesn’t need looking for.”

“He’s not invincible, Rick,” she gritted out through her teeth. “Just because you want one less person to be responsible for, that doesn’t mean you get to pretend like he doesn’t need you. How many times has he saved your life, huh? Do you even remember?”

Lori put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re worrying for nothing, sweetheart. He’ll come back in the morning, all dirty and bloody and probably every squirrel in the forest hanging off his shoulder. It’s how he likes things. He probably just needed a little space from the group, is all. Man like him, he’s not used to living in such close quarters.”

“You sure you two didn’t have a fight?”

She threw a glare at Rick, then dropped her head into her hands, massaging her temples. “We had a…thing.”

She caught Rick and Lori swapping a glance. “We don’t have any batteries left for the flashlights,” Lori said. “We can’t go looking. At least until morning.”

Rick’s head came up. “Did you hear that?”

Carol stopped breathing. The crack of gunfire was so far away, she almost couldn’t be sure she was hearing it. And then it was gone, before she could be totally sure.

She jumped off the truck, her hand going to her knife hilt. For the first time, she almost wished there was something close enough to stab.

“Could you tell if it was a rifle or a pistol?” she asked Rick. Daryl sometimes brought a pistol along with him when he went to hunt, because it was too hard to reload the crossbow quickly if he got swarmed. But rifles got tangled up with his crossbow sling, so he rarely brought one of those.

“Not for sure. That was far out, though. Farther than Daryl would have gone.”

“He’s been gone nine hours. He could get a pretty long ways in nine hours.”

“Those shots might not have had anything to do with him.” Lori zipped her coat up a little higher. “We’re not the only group of humans left alive, you know. All the places we’ve been lately have been scavenged to the bone.”

Rick touched her arm and she went quiet.

“It’s okay,” Carol said, even though her whole face felt numb. “You don’t have to protect me from the truth. It’s nothing I wasn’t already thinking.”

Rick sighed. “The world gives us plenty of bad news these days, Carol. Don’t borrow trouble by imagining things before they happen. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Stop hovering, then.” She turned her back on him, listening keenly to the darkness of the forest. But there were no more shots. If it had been Daryl, he either hadn’t brought more ammo, or something was stopping him from pulling the trigger.

#

Her feet dragged through the leaves. She kept trying to pick them up higher, but they were too heavy. She had to remind herself to look up, to scan the trees. It seemed pointless. There was nobody out there.

Maggie shot her a worried look from one side.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Hershel said from the other.

She squinted up at him, but the light of sunset was directly in her eyes and it made them sting. If she cried any more, she wasn’t sure she could live with herself.

“It just means he went out further than our search grid,” Hershel said. “I’ve seen how far that boy can walk in a day and a half. He’ll be back. Hell, he’s probably already back, sitting in camp wondering what we’re off doing with ourselves.”

“What about those shots?”

“You said you weren’t sure they _were_ shots.”

“They sounded like shots. Too far away to be sure, but in this world, what else could it be? It’s not like it was a car backfiring.”

“Like I said,” Lori put in. “Probably just another group, fighting off walkers. Nothing unusual about that.”

Carol stared at the ground, kept her feet moving. She didn’t like to think about what might have happened if Daryl had met up with another group. One like Randall’s, maybe. Most people would shoot him just to get their hands on that crossbow.

“You hear that?” Carl stopped suddenly. “The moaning. Walkers. Something’s got them stirred up, too.”

He pulled his gun even as his mother threw out her arm in front of him on the other side. “Don’t, Carl. We’re almost back to camp.”

“I think they’re _in_ camp,” Carol said. “Our cars are there, all our gear. They must have smelled humans.”

“Or Daryl’s back and they smelled the blood of whatever he brought,” Maggie said.

Carol broke into a run, her ears pricked for the thrum of the crossbow firing. If he was there, he’d be fighting.

“Carol, wait for Rick’s group!” Lori hollered. “They’re right behind us!”

She burst out into the clearing. Walkers surrounded the cars, banging on the windows. She couldn’t see if anyone was inside. One had tipped over the motorcycle and was laying with its foot caught underneath, its blood-smeared track suit torn to ribbons by its tugging. She planted her feet and started to fire.

One fell over the hood. Two shots for the one by the passenger door, the window shattering behind it. Shit, if there was anyone inside she was firing right at them. She blasted off her last three shells at the walkers staggering around the hood of the Hyundai, then yanked out her knife and went for the two still banging on the old Plymouth, reaching in the broken windows now. She stabbed one in the back of the head. The other in the mouth as it turned to reach for her.

She grabbed the edge of the broken window and leaned inside. “Daryl?” Hands grabbed at her but she craned for one last look in the backseat. Nothing.

Breath hit her shoulder and she whirled, shoving the walker back as its teeth clicked closed. But it had a grip on her now, hauling her into its mouth. Her knife hand was stuck between them and she couldn’t get enough leverage to rip it free. She staggered as another walker hit them from the right, grabbing her and the first walker, dragging them both toward its mouth. She kneed at one but it didn’t even react to the impact.

Daryl wasn’t in the car.

She knew she should be thinking about walkers, about their snapping, disease-ridden teeth, but she couldn’t focus. She hadn’t heard the crossbow. Hadn’t seen any of his gear. If he were here, would he have left his brother’s motorcycle tipped over like that?

He hadn’t been here at all. He hadn’t made it back.

One of the walkers head-butted her in the chin, greasy hair peeling away from its rotting scalp as it tried for a bite on her breast. She tucked her chin, using the pressure of her head to keep its mouth from reaching her, kicking out blindly sideways to knock the other one back.

Fear smacked into her, too late. She’d let them get too close, got cocky and careless.

A pistol fired and something thumped into the car frame right by her head. The walker on her side fell and a second later, blood exploded across her face as the one on front of her died, too.

It took her down with it and she nearly fell on her own knife, scrambling to roll free, her vision a jumble of Carl’s scared blue eyes and the bore of his gun and the walkers coming up behind him. She dropped her knife, ripped her gun out of its holster and kicked out the empty magazine, rammed a new one and shot the walker behind Carl. A chunk whirled out of his neck but he staggered and the next shot caught him in the face.

The next few minutes were just brain rattling gunfire, people running everywhere. When it was over, she sagged back against the car, sliding slowly down to the ground next to the rotting body of a walker.

Daryl had a habit of running in at just the last minute, usually to save Rick or one of the kids. Gunshots carried far in this country. If he hadn’t come, he wasn’t coming.

She slumped over and stared at the gun in her hand, smeared with walker blood.

Sophia was gone. So many of their friends, gone. She had no family left. No one that thought of her first. She was third or fourth priority to all of these people, at best. Not only that, they had nowhere to go. The sun had already set and every night now seemed to get longer, colder. Darker.

She ran a bloody thumb over the pistol.

One more day. She’d give him one more day to get back, and then she’d decide.


	9. The Deer

They had to haul off the walker bodies using just the dancing shadows of the fire, because they didn’t have any more flashlight batteries. Without any light or food to eat, people had no reason to stay up, so everyone else started to head off to bed even though it was still early. She knew she wouldn’t sleep, so she didn’t even bother laying down. Hershel had first watch, but he didn’t say much. Probably tired of her snapping at him, like everyone else. She should pretend like everything would be okay, but after a whole day of combing the woods on an empty stomach with no sign of Daryl, she just didn’t have the strength.

Every time Rick bent to frown at a set of tracks, she wanted to scream. She could tell he had no idea what he was looking at.

A rustling came from the trees. Both their heads came up, and Hershel swapped a look with her as they listened in breath-held silence. Dry leaves crackled again. Too loud, too clomping and uneven to be Daryl’s smooth gait. “I’ve got it,” she muttered. She checked her gun, unholstered her knife, and headed for the trees. She could use to stab something right now.

But once she blinked her eyes to adjust to the dark, she could see what was coming and she had no idea what it was. The shape was all wrong to be human. It was huge and hunched, staggering like a walker but with shoulders as wide as a Volkswagen, and no head. She raised her knife, shaking. What new horror did this world have to reveal now?

“Rick!” she called out. “Get everybody into the cars!”

Camp exploded into motion behind her and then there was a whistle. Quick, a little off note, but one she’d heard a thousand times. It meant the way ahead was safe.

_Daryl._

He emerged into the light, reeling under the weight of the deer that was slung whole across his shoulders. She took a step and stumbled, falling weakly against a tree. Her free hand climbed to her throat and the edges of her vision went black and quaking. Too little food, too much fear. And now there he was, right in front of her. Whole and alive and she couldn’t fully grasp the idea of it anymore. He was _here_.

Daryl turned a little and grinned, so wide she caught a flash of his teeth. “Ya hungry?” he said, but then Rick called out and he kept going toward camp, catching up with the other men who helped him heave the burden off his back.

He rolled his right shoulder stiffly, turning in a circle and smiling while the other guys pounded him on the back. Carl ran up to hug him, which he shook off quickly.

He was so bloody he was nearly as dark as T-dog. The crossbow hung crooked on his back and even from here, she could see the bits of gore clinging to his hastily restacked arrows. His shirt was torn all the way to the belt and his jacket was missing—how had he survived a night out without a jacket? His face looked swollen, battered somehow amidst all that blood and he was limping a little, now rubbing his left shoulder.

She couldn’t stop staring. It felt like it shifted her entire world, to know he was alive.

#

Nobody could wait until the deer was fully cooked before eating. They kept snatching off pieces as soon as they were blackened a little, burning their fingers. And jockeying for the story, of course.

“I’s up a tree for most of it,” Daryl said. “Don’t think my ass’ll ever be the same.”

“Well, it wasn’t much to write home about anyway,” Hershel said.

“Don’t be jealous, old man.” Daryl smiled, his face white and clean. Lori had come up with enough water for him to wash up and Rick had loaned him his spare clothes. He looked odd in the plain flannel. Too shiny, too normal to be her Daryl. She missed his vest, though she doubted she’d ever get all the blood out of the wings.

“Why didn’t you just shoot the walkers from the tree?” Carl wanted to know.

“Used up all my bolts keeping them offa the deer carcass. The blood’s what drew them in, I think. There were too many to get out of the tree, so I was going to wait until morning to finish them. I was trying to get my knife tied to a stick with my belt to make a spear, but it kept coming loose, wasn’t working.” He took another big chomp of deer, but barely got a chance to chew before Glenn interrupted.

“So what’d you do? How’d you get out?”

“Couldn’t wait for morning. They got tired of waiting on me, went for the deer. So I had to come outta the tree. Took out as many as I could, but then my knife got caught in a fresh skull.” He shrugged, went back to eating.

Carol tried to rub the feeling back into her arms, but she couldn’t even feel them. Could barely feel the ground underneath her. She should have checked him over for walker scratches herself. But she knew if he had one, he’d never have come back to camp. He’d have finished it himself.

“How’d you kill the rest?” Carl said. “With rocks?”

Daryl scowled, starting to bristle under the unaccustomed attention. “You gonna ask me how my last shit came out, too? What’s it matter? Eat your damned deer.”

“I’d kind of like to know, too, actually,” Rick said. “It could be good tactics, something the group could use again.”

“Doubt it.” Daryl spat a piece of gristle into the fire. “Ripped a rib outta one of the rotten ones. Used it to finish him and bunch o’ others till I could grab a bolt.”

“Nice!” Carl crowed.

Beth grinned. “Wow. That’s incredible.”

Lori watched him with big worried eyes over her slice of deer. “You should start bringing a gun with you. The crossbow’s quieter, I know, but for emergencies.”

“Had a gun.” He sucked some juice off his fingers, chased a drip down his wrist with his tongue. “Used up all the bullets.”

“Jesus,” T-dog murmured. “How many _were_ there?”

“Enough.” Daryl shrugged. “Been in worse spots. Got off easy, this time.”

“Worse?” T-dog sputtered. “You kiddin’ me? Like what?”

“Like when I had to pull a bolt out of my own damn self to shoot a walker, ‘cause it was the last one I had.” He ripped deer meat off the bone with his teeth, flicking a glance toward Carol.

She was distracted, for just a minute, by trying to remember when he’d ever had an arrow wound. When he was looking for Sophia and he got thrown off that horse and fell on his own crossbow bolt. It must have been. But she’d never heard him tell the story about the walker before.

Daryl looked at her again, longer this time. His eyes were so light blue, it made her realize how often she saw him only in bad light. “Why ain’t you eatin’?”

“I’m not very hungry,” she murmured, her stomach twisting into ugly knots at the thought of him alone in a tree with an entire herd of walkers reaching for him. In the dark. With no coat. No bullets. No arrows. And still he didn’t just use the deer as a distraction and save himself. Had he been planning on coming back at all, if he couldn’t bring food?

“Bullshit.” He snorted. “I barely seen you take a bite in three days. So skinny your ribs damn near stabbed me in the kidney on the bike. That’s where I got the idea for the walkers from.” He sent the slightest smile Carl’s direction, and the boy crowed with delight and pumped a fist in the air.

Carol stood up.

“I wasn’t _that_ hungry,” she said clearly, staring him down with every word of his horrific story hanging in the air between them. Against all her efforts, tears jumped to her eyes when she looked at him. She whirled away, striding blindly into the night.

“Christ,” Daryl swore. “What is it with you goddamn people? I can’t never fuckin’ win.”

Carol wasn’t stupid enough to go far. Just to the front of the cars, where she bent forward under the pain in her stomach. Bile rose in her throat, but there was nothing behind it to come out. She swallowed, squeezing her hands into fists until she could feel the tiny sting of each of her fingernails. How much pain must he be in, even now? For a _deer._

“Honey,” Lori’s gentle voice came around the car. “Come on back and eat.”

“I said I wasn’t hungry.”

Her friend touched her back. “I know what you meant. But if you don’t eat, you’re spitting on everything he did to get that deer for us.”

“He could have died for that stupid deer. What was he thinking? Does he think that’s what we would have wanted? That we’d give him up for food?”

“He didn’t intend for it to go that way, obviously.” Lori ducked her head, trying to look Carol in the eye. “But when it did, he did what he had to do to bring the deer back. To feed you.” She brushed Carol’s hair smooth. “Honey, he hunts for the whole group but what he did? I think that might have been for you.”

Carol nearly doubled over under a twist of pain in her gut. She didn’t know if it was stress, or if the smell of fresh meat was too rich for her empty stomach, or maybe both.

“I don’t want that,” she gritted out. “I wanted him to come _home.”_

“I know.” Lori smoothed her hand over Carol’s hair and down her back. “But you’ve got to show him that in…other ways. Not by throwing what he did for you back in his face.”

Carol cleared her throat, did her best to stand up straight. “Daryl and I aren’t like that.”

The other woman watched her, concern in every line of her face. “Maybe not. But you’re something. And whatever that something is, it’s pretty important to that man. Makes me think his heart’s probably pretty twisted up right now.”

Carol scrubbed her hands over her face. “I can’t think. Too cold, too hungry. Too…god I’ve been so afraid. You’ve no idea how sick afraid I’ve been.”

“Yeah,” Lori said, “I do.”

“Sorry. Sorry, of course you do.” She threw her a guilty look. “But this is just…I don’t know what’s all going on with us,” she confessed in a rush. “I don’t know what I want, I’ve got no idea what he wants, I don’t know what’s best for the group and I can’t ever get a moment to just _think_.”

“Just be kind,” Lori said. “He doesn’t look it, but he’s really sensitive, that one.” She rubbed her back. “Come on back and have some food. You can figure the rest out later.”

“Of course. I’m sorry to be so emotional.” Carol wiped her eyes with one sleeve and straightened her shoulders, coming with Lori back to the fire.

The rest of the group was quiet now, the only sounds the scrape of teeth on bones. Carol tried to meet Daryl’s eyes but he didn’t look up. “Thank you,” she said softly, and took a piece of meat off one of the spits.

“What, Mommy make you say thanks for your dinner?” he sneered. “Fuck you. Why don’t you go polish the hubcaps on the truck or somethin’? Show everybody how important you are to the group. I don’t need you and your fucking _thanks._ ” He shucked a fat rib bone into the fire. It was still thick with meat and Carl dove for it. Lori caught him and hauled him back before he burned himself, but he dug it out with a stick, blowing the ashes off it as Daryl stalked away.

“All right,” Rick said, his mouth tight as he very pointedly didn’t look at her. “That went well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Up next…oh man, what can I say without spoilering it? Well, let’s say there is some action and suspense, and the chapter is named “Naked.” I love you guys so much for all your support and reviews for this story! * blows kisses*


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10: Naked**

So much of her life now was defined by loss.

Carol didn’t have a name for the hollow, tattered feeling that lived deep in her throat, below her tongue. She didn’t have a name for the stillness that came from riding on a truck seat that was too still after the deep, healthy thrum of the motorcycle. She didn’t have a name for the weird satisfaction that came from forcing her knife into a walker’s skull, all her fingers bruised on the edges from the brass knuckle handle of her new blade. She didn’t have a name for the contradiction of feelings that welled up every time Daryl didn’t jump between her and a threat.

She was going crazy.

Or maybe, they just needed a whole new language of suffering for a world filled with the insatiable dead. The way Eskimos had a thousand words for snow.

Normally, Daryl’s anger burned off quick. Sometimes, if it had been bad enough, he’d work up to apologizing. But maybe nothing in this world could be normal for more than a second. Because after their argument about what he risked to bring home that deer, he didn’t forgive her.

She didn’t go to the bike the next morning, because his posture was so whip-taut she was afraid to. Instead, she just got in with Glenn and Maggie and every day that went by, Daryl got quieter with her, and louder with everyone else.

His temper had a rhythm to it. He’d say something mean and true, hit something or walk it off, and then she’d push right back into his life. This time, she didn’t push, because she needed the space to think. To try and decide if she wanted more with Daryl, the way Rick and Lori seemed to think she did. Did it need to be romantic, between them? What they had wasn’t really about sex or kissing, though her body seemed plenty interested in those things when he was around.

When she tried to examine her feelings, the thing that hurt like a wound in the base of her throat was that she wanted to be important to someone. She hadn’t ever been important to anyone but Sophia, and what child had a choice but to love her mother?

She wanted to _be_ something. Mean something to someone. But what she already had with Daryl was more than she’d had in so long and he was so broken himself that it was very precarious. One touch, one little moment of eye contact and he’d gone running off in the forest for a day and a half and nearly gotten himself killed.

They were all walking the razor’s edge of survival here. Any tiny little imbalance could throw them off. But relationships could steady them, too. Glenn had come into his own after he found Maggie. And after Sophia died, Carol would have given up if she wouldn’t have been so worried about Daryl. Them together could be a good thing, if she followed what Rick said and she was very careful and took it slow with him.

If there was one thing she knew about Daryl Dixon, it was that he needed more love in his life.

But she needed to be sure that “more” was something he wanted, and communication wasn’t exactly his strong point.

On the third day after the deer, he scouted very far ahead and found them a mansion with a pond out front. A house with water nearby was nearly a holiday. Bathing, laundry, a fire-and-boiling party that always led to wistful s’mores jokes and Carl finding ridiculous things to toss on the fire just to see how they’d burn.

They burned exactly like things on fire. Carol never had the heart to tell him that they were all the same.

But today, a house to camp in before dark and water nearby didn’t get the joy tingling in her throat like it did for the others. After they boiled enough water, she followed Lori and Beth down to the pond with a heavy heart and a big sack of dirty clothes that people had shucked off with no trace of modesty.

Carol took off her jacket and shoes and rolled up her pants. She pulled the pistol Daryl had given her out of the back of her pants and laid it on the ground. With the other hand, she rubbed the bruised place it left against her spine, oily grit building up behind it. It would be nice to have a real holster, if they could ever find one that fit.

She checked the forest behind the pond, then waded into the freezing water with the other women. She would kill for a full-body bath, but it was terrifying enough to just take her shoes off these days. If she had to run, she’d be so slow without them.

They started to splash off, washing quickly and shiveringly under and around their clothes.

“I can’t take it anymore. I’m going all in.” Lori whipped her shirt off and threw it toward the shore. Her bra flew after it.

Beth’s eyes widened and she giggled.

Carol eyed the goosebumps already breaking out across her friend’s skin. “Better hurry.” Her jeans were clinging to her legs with old sweat, and she clenched her teeth, skinning out of her shirt. She dropped it right in the water. It needed a wash as bad as she did. Her feet were already numb but she stayed in the water and scooped water into her armpits, flushed it along her arms. Next to her, Lori squeaked and shivered as she bathed. Carol grinned, her nerve endings tingling with life for the first time this week. With the next splash of frigid water over her short hair, she cried out, her abs clenching.

“Shh!” Beth warned, but she was laughing. “You two are crazy!”

“But we’re cleeean,” Lori sing songed.

It was true. Her skin felt like her skin again, without layers of dirt and sweat and blood clinging to her and weighing her down. Carol glanced once at the stiffness of her graying, bloodstained bra, and then she reached behind her back and popped the clasp, the bumps of her spine scraping her fingers.

Even with the deer, they hadn’t had much food lately.

She dipped the bra into the lake, squeezing water through it with numb hands. It was disgusting, really, but she didn’t have a backup. And who would see it anyway? There was no one to care what she wore under her clothes.

Her hands locked hard on the ball of sodden fabric, sadness dragging at her again until she couldn’t even think about wading out of the pond, much less getting up tomorrow morning. “Lori?”

“Uh-uh-huh?” the other woman chattered, wringing out her bra and dashing for shore. She threw on her husband’s dirty shirt out of the laundry pile, rubbing her arms for warmth.

“What you said the other day? About…” She trailed off without saying his name. “About how you didn’t know what we were, but we were something.”

Beth shot a covert peek at her as she waded out of the lake, her whole slim teenaged body trembling with the cold. Carol splashed after the younger girl, her feet numb and her torso headed for the same result. Usually, she didn’t care to bathe in front of the others but today she already felt so raw and naked that being without her shirt hardly even registered.

Lori sent her a quick, sharp look. “Of course I remember.”

“Why’d you say it?” Carol asked. “I mean, how could you know that he—”

There was no sound after she broke off. Not splashing, not even birds. Seemed like the whole forest behind the pond had gone silent.

“Because I was thinking I might— But I don’t want to— Especially not if—” Carol coughed, all the vocabulary she’d learned in her whole life suddenly getting caught up in her throat. She didn’t want to say any of it in front of Beth, and more than that, she didn’t want to think it. It felt like too much hanging out in the open; vulnerable in this world of intense cruelty, this world that delighted in taking everything away.

Lori looked at her. “You really don’t know?”

A creaking moan came out of the forest.

She looked that way, and the walker came reeling out of the trees surprisingly fast. It was the closest to her, and Beth and Lori were both between her and her gun. If she went after the weapon, the walker would grab them first.

She leapt forward, her cold-numbed fingers tangling in the snap that would release her knife from its sheath. It came free just as the walker grabbed her, its skeletal hands digging with heedless strength into her thin arms. It didn’t care what part of her it held, just wanted to haul her in toward its teeth, but now she couldn’t get her knife high enough to reach its head. She stabbed at anything she could reach and the walker didn’t even flinch. It had a hole in its cheek, its tongue caught through that instead of coming out through its mouth and even as she kept struggling, Carol couldn’t stop staring at the wrongness of it.

Next to her, Lori screamed, and walkers piled out of the forest. Beth went down under one of them, sending up a spray of water. Terror bolted through Carol as, in an instant, the odds went from manageable to certain death.

“ _Daryl_!” she screamed, the word tearing at her throat with its sheer volume.

Then, she made herself go limp. It was a ploy from early in her marriage, to trick Ed into dropping her so she could run. That was before she realized that running just meant he’d beat her twice as hard and she learned to endure instead.

The walker didn’t drop her, though, just toppled dumbly when their combined weight hit a tipping point. Its chin cracked her in the eye when they fell. She grazed her own arm with her knife, stabbing blindly because she couldn’t wait for her vision to clear. Not with diseased teeth that close. Wetness splattered her face, freezing rocks ground into her bare back, but the growls and snarls of the walker just got louder so she must not have struck home. She tried to blink burning blood out of her eyes, and suddenly her knife arm was free. She drew it back and then the walker’s weight lifted off her.

The walker went flying, hitting the ground a few feet away and sliding. Daryl hurtled over her without finishing it off, and sent a crossbow bolt into the brain of the walker wrestling with Beth. He threw his crossbow over his shoulder and ripped his knife from his belt. He grabbed the last walker by the hair, jerking its head back from where its teeth had been about to close on Lori’s cheek. He rammed the long knife in through its temple.

Carol tore her gaze from him and hauled her bruised body up, meeting the walker with the ruined cheek as it came crawling back toward her. She kicked it onto its back, stabbed neatly through its eye socket, then looked for more.

One smaller one, a child. Her stomach twisted, but it was heading for Beth where she lay in the shallow water, still struggling to get out from under the body of the walker Daryl had killed.

Carol re-gripped her knife and told herself it was no different. It wasn’t a child, any more than the taller ones were people. It was just death, staggering on two dead feet. She had to do this.

A bolt pierced the tiny walker through the back of the head.

She let out a little breath of relief when it fell, her knees going weak.

Daryl caught her as she reeled. She flinched in surprise and left-over adrenaline and they both stumbled, going to their knees in the rocks. He dropped the crossbow, rubbing blood frantically off her arms so he could check for wounds beneath. She jerked as his hand shoved blood off her breast, grazing her cold-hardened nipple.

“You bit? You hurt?” He yanked her in, but it wasn’t a hug. Instead, he peered over her back, his fingers too urgent to be gentle as he scoured her skin for scratches. She could feel the change in him the second he realized she was unmarred, and then a sound came out of him. She couldn’t have named it. It was the kind of rough, thoughtless noise you made when you were injured or asleep. A visceral expellation of relief. He gripped her elbows, much too hard like he’d forgotten his own strength, and his eyes met hers.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. Three days had never felt so long, now that he was looking at her again.

He blinked, then paled as his eyes flicked down. “ _Jesus._ Get dressed.” He grabbed for the bag of clothes and shoved something at her, his gaze firmly on the ground now. The thing he’d handed her wasn’t a shirt—it was a pair of Carl’s food-stained pants. She held them up over her breasts anyway, shame sinking its claws into her.

She thought she might have had a good body, once, back in high school when the boys seemed interested. But now, her ribs stuck out like ugly stripes, her skin grayish with cold and slashed with scars. Her breasts small and not as perky as they’d been before Sophia. And Daryl had just seen all of that.

He reached for his crossbow, then seemed to change his mind and shucked his jacket and vest instead, dropping them in her lap. “Dry clothes,” he said to Beth as she waded out of the pond. “ ‘Fore the shock wears off and you get cold.” He threw a questioning look at Lori, and when she nodded that she was okay, he swept up his weapons and went off.

They were all quiet for a minute, shaky from adrenaline and cold.

“Should we go back to the house?” Beth asked in a small voice.

Carol stood up, pulling on Daryl’s jacket and vest over her bare breasts. “These clothes aren’t going to wash themselves, and it’s not like we’ll get a better place than this.” She grabbed the child walker by its ankles and hauled it out of the water. “Help me with this one?” she said to Lori. The other woman stared at her for a minute before grabbing one leg of the larger walker and helping her clear the water.

Carol shoved the pistol into the back of her pants. It would gouge her back when she bent over to do the washing, but she had learned her lesson about keeping it close. Three steps might as well be the full width of North America away, once walkers attacked.

“Go on and change into your dry clothes,” Carol said to Beth.

The blonde pointed out into the woods with one bluish-tinged, shaking hand. “Can’t. Daryl’s still there.”

Carol looked and saw the dark back of his shirt through the trees. He was walking even faster than normal. A good ways off but paralleling them, not moving further away. As she watched, he turned and paced back the other way. Always keeping turned away from the pond, but there. Within shouting distance.

“He’s watching out for us,” she told the younger girl without looking away from him. She hugged his coat a little closer around herself.

“Go ahead and change,” Lori said. “If he accidentally catches a glimpse, he’ll be more embarrassed than you will be.” And then, to Carol’s surprise, she laughed. “I thought he was going to puke out of pure nerves when he saw you were topless.”

Carol’s stomach curdled and she turned away, busying herself with wringing out her dropped shirt and bra, then locating the dry clothes she’d brought down to put on. She took off Daryl’s jacket, keeping her back to the forest as her shoulders curled inward and she hurried to cover herself. It felt sluttish to go without a bra, but hers was wet. And what did it matter? It’s not like Daryl would be looking, not now that he knew what she really looked like.

Ed had always told her how skinny and bland her body was. How ridiculous it looked when she tried to wear push up bras or flattering shirts. Like putting lipstick on a pig, he’d said. Just another reason nobody’d ever want her but him.

He may have been an asshole, but he’d been right about that. In the movies, when men saw girls they liked bathing, their eyes would get wide and hazy with desire. All Daryl had done was shove her away and tell her to get dressed.

She folded his jacket away and put on her own.

Thank goodness this happened before she could make some kind of move on him. He _did_ care about her. That was obvious since he’d been utterly frantic when he thought she’d been bitten, even though both Lori and Beth had closer calls than her. She’d just let her own fantasies cloud her judgment so that she thought his caring was about more than friendship.

She bit the inside of her lip, her back hunching more as she chose the most soiled pieces of laundry to wash, and tossed the lighter stuff to Beth and Lori. She felt filthier than the clothes when she thought of how she’d almost forced herself on Daryl. He was so sweet, so innocent in so many ways. And she’d nearly put him in the position of having to tell her that he didn’t want her to touch him like that. He’d made it clear that he was uncomfortable with physical contact and she’d done it anyway, like she knew better than he did what he wanted.

_You want it. Don’t you go squirming like a virgin, pretending like you don’t._

Ed’s remembered voice was so loud in her head she almost didn’t hear Lori, asking if she was okay.

Carol looked up. “I’m fine.” She forced a smile.

The other woman reached over and gently brushed a tear off Carol’s face. “It was scary,” Lori said. “None of the men are around, so don’t feel like you have to pretend it’s just another day at the races. Just because you did the right thing and fought back doesn’t mean it wasn’t scary.”

Carol nodded, the tears falling unchecked now. Shame streaked muddily over her every thought and she didn’t dare to check behind her to see if Daryl still paced the woods, protecting her despite his discomfort at having been forced to see her without clothes.

“Some things never change,” she whispered. “You learn to fight, and you feel different, but…some things just stay the same.”

#

The mansion had a garden before the turn, and the cellar had enough Mason-jarred peaches, string beans and pickles for two whole days of meals, for everyone. They made a strange feast, all together, but nobody wanted to pass up a single novel flavor.

Carol took a little bit of all of them, for the nutrition, but she didn’t taste a bite.

Fortunately, the dining room table was full, so nobody commented when she perched on the bottom of the stairs to the second floor instead. Her back and knees ached from bending over the pond, her joints sore from so much cold water. And the twisting in her stomach had nothing to do with any of that.

Daryl came into the living room, gobbling pickles straight from the jar. When he saw her, his steps hitched and then he turned and hustled back into the loud, boisterous dining room.

She struggled to swallow her bite and finally gave up, spitting a slimy chunk of peach back into the bowl.

A minute later, Daryl came back out of the kitchen, striding as fast and purposeful as if he were headed to kill a walker. He had the pickles clutched in one hand, but he wasn’t eating anymore. He sat down next to her, making the step jump beneath both of them. She cringed away from the tension radiating off him.

They both stared at the far wall.

“I wasn’t watchin’,” he said abruptly. “I know when ya go down to do laundry, you take a bath, usually. So I wasn’t watchin’. I was just in the yard, so I heard when ya yelled and I ran. That’s why I got there so fast.”

“Trust me,” Carol muttered. “I didn’t think you were.”

“Oh.” His fingers tapped against the jar of pickles as he seemed to consider her words. Then he sat back, took out a pickle and took a big chomp.

She stared down at her bowl, the food still not looking edible even now that Daryl had relaxed some. “Sorry I had to call for you. I was going to take care of it, it just caught my by the arms and I couldn’t get my knife up high enough.”

“Saw that.” He sucked pickle juice off his fingers. “I can show you how to twist your arms away, when they get ya like that. Used to do it to my daddy when I’s small, so I could run off. He was big but dumb, like the walkers. C’mon.” He set down his pickles and nodded toward the empty living room. “May as well show ya now.”

He’d have to touch her in order to show her how to break a grip. Her shoulders curled in, her chest hollow and brittle. She could feel her soiled bra like a spotlight burning beneath her shirt, as it cupped her sagging breasts.

“No, you don’t have to. You’ve had to do enough for me today.” If she practiced with him, she’d have to look at him, and she was afraid she’d see in his face the disgust of knowing what her naked body was like. It was bad enough he was being nice to her, so innocently being a good friend like he had no idea she had been half-planning to try to push him into being more.

“ ’S no trouble,” he protested. “I don’t mind.”

When she didn’t respond, he bumped her with his shoulder. Very soft, in his own little Daryl hug.

Tears hit the back of her eyes and she snapped to standing, all the things she could never have suddenly flooding up her throat like she was drowning on a sea of her own stupid desires.

“I’m tired,” she managed to get out. “Thank you, for what you did. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She fled up the stairs without looking back.


	11. Listen

Things were easier, now that she wasn’t looking sideways at Daryl and wondering how it would be if he was her man. Easier the way it was when you got accustomed to eating Ramen and never bought the lottery ticket that started you wishing for more.

Days slipped by under the rumble of the motorcycle. After the topless incident at the pond, Daryl seemed eager to be nice to her, like he had something to make up for. She didn’t understand why, but it helped them to fall into a rough kind of companionship. Everything about survival. Counting bullets, calories, miles. The parts of her that were feminine and lonely just got quieter until she felt like she was leaving that part of her behind.

It felt good, like dumping off an old car that had never worked right and getting in a new one that hummed with confidence and efficiency. She could wield a knife, now. Her aim was getting better with a gun, though she was still terrible at any distance unless she could rest the rifle on something.

She badgered Daryl into teaching her all sorts of things. He seemed to like it, pleasure sparking in his eyes whenever she laughed at how easy something was for his hands and how clumsy it was for hers. He always brushed it off, saying, “Don’t take no brains.”

But he started offering new skills, too. All sorts of things she didn’t realize he knew how to do, like he’d forgotten himself. Or just didn’t realize all the things he took for granted were actually benefits in this new world.

It was nice, seeing how much easier he seemed in his own skin when he was needed. He was the sort of man who was meant to be a husband and father.

The thought startled her, came too uneasily close to reminding her of all her feminine failings, so of course she covered it up by starting an argument.

“I’ll tell you exactly why you can’t take a watch,” Daryl snapped. “First, cause you never goddamn sleep as it is. Second, cause it always goes the same way. I walk out in the trees to take out a walker, hear another one, go after it. Two more come up while I’m fixin’ that one, and then it’s a whole goddamn rodeo.”

“Your point?” Carol crossed her arms and tapped one foot. “That sounds exactly like the last three walker battles we had this week, and I was a part of all of those.”

“My point is, you’re good for one or two walkers at a time now, but if you get cocky like Andrea did, you probly end up like Andrea did.”

“Low.” She glared, and he glared right back.

“I’m right and you know it. ‘Sides, fighting walkers in the dark ain’t as easy as it sounds.”

“Neither is putting up with you, and I do that every day!”

Maggie burst into laughter and they both glared at her. “You two are more old married couple than Glenn and I.”

“I am nothing like a grouchy old man!” Glenn protested.

“Who said you were the man? I was thinking superstitious cat lady.”

He scowled. “I don’t even like cats. Before the turn, I had a bird. Birds are way smarter than cats.”

“How do you figure?” Maggie asked. “Cats eat birds.”

“Not parrots! Parrots are smarter than monkeys, and monkeys are way smarter than cats.”

Carol ignored them and turned back to her argument. “There are still plenty of nights when things are quiet, and you men could all be getting more sleep than you are if we divided up the watches more.”

“The word ‘no’ got some other kinda meaning where you come from?”

“This coming from the man who nearly fed me to a pair of walkers to make a point?” Carol straightened up, ignoring his furious look. “I’ll wake you up, okay? If it’s quiet, you can all sleep, and if there’s a problem, I’ll wake you up so I’ll have backup. Would that make you happy?”

“I’ll tell you what would make me happy is—” He launched into a bout of such ferocious creative swearing that Lori grabbed Carl and covered both his ears.

Carol just smiled. “It’s settled, then.”

#

“Possum,” Daryl said after a second of listening to the scuffling sound in the bushes. Carol crouched, her hand still frozen on his arm as she stared out into the trees. He shook her off, yanking his blanket up again and yawning a curse. “You just fuckin’ with me because I didn’t want you to take watch?”

“How can you tell it’s a possum?” she insisted. “There are at least three different kinds of animals the size of a possum out there, and that’s assuming you can tell one kind of leaf crinkling from another kind of leaf crinkling and who the hell can do that?” She dropped exhaustedly to her bottom. This was the fourth time she’d heard a noise and had to wake him, and she was on her last nerve. She’d thought listening to the forest sounds while trying to sleep was bad enough, but being responsible for knowing what they actually were was a thousand times worse. If she was wrong and it turned out to be a herd of walkers, it would be all her fault.

“It’s a possum because it sounds like a fuckin’ possum,” Daryl groaned, punching his backpack pillow. “Jesus, woman.”

A louder noise rattled from the forest and her hand flew to his arm, gripping hard before she could think better of it.

He growled and thrashed clear of the blanket, rolling to his feet. He picked up the crossbow; checked the bolt, checked the string, slung in onto his back. “C’mon.”

She looked up at him, cringing at her own failure after she’d fought so hard to be placed on watch. He grabbed her hand and hauled her to her feet when she hesitated.

“You gonna wake me up all goddamn night long, might as well teach you a thing or two.”

He led her far enough away from the fire that their voices wouldn’t disturb the sleeping group and sat down with his right side facing the fire. She sat down next to him and he held a finger in the air, spinning it. “Other way. Need your ears facing out two different ways from the fire. This way, we can listen all four directions.”

She blinked at him. “You don’t hear in directions, Daryl. What are you talking about?”

He reached over and touched her ear, surprisingly gentle. Her fingers jerked in her lap.

“The way it curves,” he said. “Funnels sound.” He traced a finger from the back of her ear up to the rim of it. “Bends forward there, right? Funnels sound real good from the side or the front of you, but not the back. Deer’s ears do the same thing, but they can move ‘em. We cain’t. So when you’re on watch, turn your head a lot.”

He dropped his hand but goosebumps were already prickling her skin all the way down into the collar of her coat.

She scooted around so they were back to back. Quickly, so she wouldn’t forget that she wasn’t a woman anymore. She was just a person. With her coat on, she was straight-bodied and androgenous, a rifle laid across her lap like one of the guys. She gripped it for strength.

“That one,” Daryl said, when the first sound came. “See how it sounds higher, how there’s like a…sharp scratchy sound? That’s nails on bark, not dirt. Little ones, though, so probly a squirrel.”

“But in the leaves, how does a possum sound different from a fox from a walker?”

“Steps,” he said. “Possum kinda shuffles along, foxes step light. Walkers drag their feet, usually. Living people step heavy.”

“Not you.” She blew out a breath. “I’ve never understood it. Leaves make noise, leaves hide sticks that break. But you never make half as much noise as the rest of us.”

“Bend ya knees,” he said abruptly. “Soak up your weight in your legs, not let it stomp down through your feet. And I go slow. Set m’ heel down first, test it, then roll onta my toe. Show ya next time we’re out.”

“Heel-toe, heel-toe,” she murmured. “I’ll remember that.”

They sat up for hours. The silences between sounds sometimes stretched minutes, sometimes hours, but after every one, Daryl’s low voice murmured, describing it, explaining which part of which animal made what noise. When he explained it, she could suddenly hear all the differences. He never sounded tired, or bored. It was like he could listen to the forest forever.

Their weight shifted over time, their backs leaning more and more into each other, until they were holding each other up without ever talking about it. He was warm, even through both their jackets, and that was nice, too.

Carol shifted her legs, propping up her knees because he was a little heavier so she had to brace to keep them both sitting. “Did your dad teach you all that? When you learned to hunt?”

“Nah. Sittin’ in the forest out back of my house, when I’s a kid. Scared like every noise I heard was the chupacabra Dad was always telling me about.” He paused. “Took me a long time to get ‘em figured, but everything seemed less scary once I figured out what all the sounds was.”

“Why would you sit out there alone in the first place if you were scared?” She frowned. Sophia wouldn’t even go out on the porch after dark, much less sit alone in the woods.

Daryl didn’t answer, and she bit her lip, feeling like an idiot for asking. Obviously things in his house were more intimidating than anything in the forest, even before he knew what was out there.

“Why’d you marry Ed?”

Her stomach muscles twitched. “I’d rather not talk about that.”

“Nah, I’m serious. Ain’t making fun. Was he nice, at first? Or good-lookin’ or somethin’? Why…I mean you _married_ him.”

She sighed, sitting up. Daryl’s weight fell a little before he caught himself, sitting up so they weren’t touching. Her back felt cold. “He was popular, and pretty soon I was pregnant. That’s about all there was to it. By the time I had my first miscarriage, I already had the ring on my finger.”

“Plenty of girls got pregnant, back where I’s from. Most of ‘em didn’t get married.”

“What do you want me to say?” she asked sharply. “That I was stupid? I was. And old-fashioned, and idealistic. But no, he wasn’t like what you saw from the start.”

“ ’S not what I meant,” he said after a moment. “Just…Lori and Rick seem like they hate each other, most days. And Maggie didn’t seem so hot on Glenn at first. I just don’t know how girls decide, you know? That they want to be hitched with somebody for good.” A twig snapped, but she didn’t jump because his hands were always messing with something when they talked. She was used to that. “Seems crazy. Thinkin’ you’d know something like that.”

“Maybe that’s why people get it wrong, as often as not,” she said. “Were you ever married?”

“Me?”

“No, the possum.”

He huffed out a breath. “Nah. Couple girls, off ’n on. Not like, a girlfriend. Just…stuff. I dunno.”

She stared at the forest, running her hands along the gun. Letting the metal parts feel sturdy and neutral like her arms and legs. She could be as cold and useful as this gun. That’s what this world needed. Not someone shrinking inside at the thought that he’d never had anyone to hold him at night, to smile at him when he got home.

She tried to focus on the conversation, on what he’d asked. “I think you can know, though. When you know a person deep enough, you know what they’d do. How they’d react. How living with them would be. It’s the other part that’s hard, I think. Asking them to take you on, forever. However you are. When I married Ed, I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing.” She paused. “Probably never would have had the guts to do it, if I’d known.”

“Yeah,” Daryl said, sounding far away. “That’s a lot to ask.”

“It is.” Carol stared out at the trees. She’d been sitting in the cold for so long, she could barely feel her body. Maybe it was better that way. “It really is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Up next, Carol does something that I’ve wanted to see her do for a long time (that she’s never done on the show).


	12. Rebreak My Heart

Carol had given up trying to make dinner. Not that there was much she could do to spice up a can of wax beans and one of fruit cocktail. She certainly couldn’t combine the cans. And staring at them wasn’t doing much to distract her from the short tempers around camp.

Lori had snapped at Carl for building up the fire too high, Rick snapped at T-dog for something to do with one of the truck tires, and then Daryl called them all dumbasses for something she didn’t even bother to listen to, because he did that half a dozen times a day. Except this time, Rick stepped up into his face, that wild light in his eye like the first night off the farm.

“You got something to say to me?”

“Shit yes, I do!” Daryl’s chest went out, his chin cocking up. “And so should ever’body else, you leading us around like the Pied goddamn Piper forgot to pack his map.”

Rick’s jaw clenched. He was used to Daryl backing his decisions to the group, and she could tell he didn’t quite know how to deal with this. And if there was one thing she knew about men, it was that if you pointed out their uncertainty, they got certain really fast. And loudly. 

Instead, Rick swallowed and kept his voice calm, painfully reasonable. “Every time we stop for more than a night, we draw in too many walkers.”

“So we get some fuckin’ walls. Keep ‘em out.” Daryl threw a hand toward their puny fire. “Keep the heat in, so maybe we still got some people come spring, not a whole line up of man-sicles.”

“You know as well as I do all the houses are close to population centers. There, the walkers group up even faster until it’s all we can do to fight our way out come morning. But if you have a different strategic suggestion, Daryl, I’d be open to it.”

“Man, don’t you use your fuckin’ cop voice on me.” He shoved him. Not hard, just a smack of a hand against his chest. “ _‘_ A different strategic suggestion, Daryl…’” he mocked. “It ain’t rocket science. What we doing ain’t _workin_ ’.”

They’d had this argument at least one hundred times. Carol resisted the urge to drop her head into her hands, because if she showed frustration, it would just feed both their tempers. “Time to eat,” she called. “And hurry up or you won’t get your share.”

The two men locked eyes, and for a long moment, she wasn’t sure if they were going to listen this time. But Rick’s jaw flexed once, and then he turned away, taking the high road. Daryl followed, practically walking up the back of Rick’s heels with a bounce to his step like he had energy to burn. Not a good sign.

Carol passed the cans to them first and Daryl dipped out a big bite of beans, chewing messily as he glared across the fire at Rick. “What we need is somethin’ we can defend. None o’ these fuckin’ tract house, shack house, trailer house…” he bitched. “Thangs made of cardboard and fucking throw pillows. Too many windas.”

Lori was watching him from across the fire, her eyes wide, and Carol could tell how badly she wanted to agree. But she wouldn’t go against her husband openly. Bicker with him all day long about the color of the sky, but she wouldn’t contradict him in front of the others about something important.

“Maybe it’s better,” Maggie said. “If we think we’re safe, we relax. It might be better not to have the illusion in the first place.”

“Not if it ain’t no illusion,” Daryl said. “When we left the farm, Rick, you said we’d find us a place. Fortify it. But now we’s just runnin’.”

“I haven’t seen a good place, that’s all.”

“Historically,” Hershel said, taking the beans as Daryl passed them on. “Fortifications were built on the tallest hill, with trees cleared for a better vantage point. Castles are the classic example, with a moat and a bridge that could be raised and lowered at need.”

“Well, we ain’t got us a chainsaw or a backhoe, so keep wishin’ on castles, old man.” Daryl propped his arms over his bent up knees.

Carol tried to think how she could soothe him without any more food to offer. There had been too many groups of walkers today, and a close call with Carl where Daryl had been stuck literally wrestling the child out of a corpse’s grasp. He’d had to stuff his boot into the walker’s mouth to keep its teeth out of Carl’s ankle.

All that meant they hadn’t found a camp until well after dark. He’d been driving all day, and hadn’t gotten a chance to hunt, or shake off the noise of the group. He needed exercise or peace and quiet, but she couldn’t give him either of those things. She dropped her head, rubbing the back of her sore neck.

“You hurt?” he barked out, and Carol’s head came up, glancing quickly around the fire before she realized he was talking to her.

“No. Just tired.” She dredged up a smile, her skin prickling at all the eyes watching them. Daryl hadn’t asked that of any of the others, and they’d all been caught in the same walker attack.

“Not much these days is already fortified,” Rick mused. “We tried the military bases, but they were all Ground Zero of the worst action. Full of walkers and scavengers now, too. A prison would work, too. Something with walls, or at least fences.” He glanced at Daryl. “Is there one around here, that you know of?”

“Why the hell you lookin’ at _me_? You’re the cop.”

“Just…you’re kind of from around here,” Beth jumped in, looking distressed.

“So what? You think I been in ever’ lock up for a hundred miles?”

Carol bit down on the inside of her cheek, the hurt flashing in his eyes gouging inside her own chest. “That’s not what she meant, Daryl. You just have a knack for remembering locations.” She smiled. “Heck, you knew where the only craft store was when we needed sewing supplies. And nobody’s accusing you of having an secret needlepoint habit.”

The mood around the fire eased as he sat back a little, and Beth held out the can of fruit cocktail to him even though she’d barely had a bite. “Didn’t mean anything by it,” she whispered.

He ducked his head and took the can. “S’rry.”

She brightened, perking back up. Carol fought back a smile. Beth had a hundred questions a day for him, and he got frustrated with her fast, but he didn’t seem to have much heart for yelling at the delicate little blonde. He was as quick to apologize as he was to snap.

“We need us a swamp house,” Daryl said through a mouthful of fruit cocktail. “Up on stilts. See what’s comin’ atcha.” He took one more bite and passed it to Carl. “Even a regular house’d do. Bust out the stairs, get a ladder you could pull up.”

“Like a drawbridge,” Hershel said approvingly.

“And listen to all the walkers down below?” Lori shuddered.

“What, like we don’t listen’ to ‘em now?” Daryl threw a hand out at the forest, where even now, they could hear faint moans. Smell the rot of old flesh. “Up high like that, you could pick off the walkers when you wanted to come out.”

“Until we ran out of bullets,” Rick said.

Daryl snorted out a derisive sound. “Hell, with my bow and a couple o’ sharp sticks, you could kill ‘em all before you ever had to come down into reach. Pick up the bolts when you’s done.”

“Until too many grouped up,” Rick said.

“Kill ‘em early,” Daryl said. “Sound’s what draws in the others. Kill off the first group, maybe send some people to clear out the area in layers. They don’t ever start comin’, they won’t group up.” He sucked his fingers clean, scooted back and grabbed a stick, started drawing in the dirt. “You pile up the brush like this, make an arrowhead out of it. Wouldn’t even have to be a fence if it was far ‘nough out. If nothin’s drawin’ ‘em on, they’s just stagger on ‘round whatever’s in their way. Like herding rabbits into a snare like I showed ya.” He drew a shape like an almond, so any walkers would be deflected out and around their camp.

Hershel nodded. “Even better if one side of it could be a natural defense, like a cliff or a stream.”

“Not that mud like at the farm, though. They get stuck and get to hollerin’, they draw in more.” Daryl dropped the stick and dusted off his hands. “We could start scoutin’ for a place tomorrow. Clear it a little fore we ever even brought the group in.”

“It’s not safe, to deliberately take on as many as we’d have to in order to clear an area,” Rick said.

“What, and this is safe? Drivin’ round like oil grows on trees? Oil’s like ammo. World ain’t makin’ no more, so you don’t burn it ‘less you’re about to die.” Daryl glared out at the forest. “And camping every night ain’t safe. Not remotely. Ain’t nothin’ between us n’ them, Rick. And you think this is the worst of it, you’re the dumb end of a fucking stupid ass mule.”

“We’ll make do,” Rick murmured. “We have so far.”

“You think this is as cold as it’s gonna get? You think this is as _bad_ as it’s gonna get?” Daryl squinted at him. “Yes, I guess you would. Guy like you, ain’t never been hungry long ‘nough to know how bad it gets.”

“So what? Because you were poor, you’re smarter than me?” Rick’s calm cop voice was starting to slip.

“Smart ‘nough to come in outta the fuckin’ rain. We gonna keep this up when the baby comes, huh? Lori gonna have to have that baby in the backa the fucking Suburban while we’s driving cause it ain’t safe to stop? Whatcha gonna do when the crying hauls in all the walkers?” Daryl stabbed a finger down at the diagram he’d drawn in the dirt. “We had a cleared area, that baby’d be safe. Out here, it ain’t gonna last a damn day or two.”

Lori gasped and Rick shot to his feet.

“Are you saying I’m not capable of protecting my family?”

Daryl blasted to standing. “Man, I don’t have to say shit to anybody that’s got eyes in their head.”

Lori grabbed Carol’s wrist, squeezing hard. Rick was being stupid enough, she had half a mind to let Daryl hit him, but the group didn’t need to see their two leaders beating on each other, and none of them could afford those men to be slowed by injuries. Not with as many walkers as they’d seen lately.

“Daryl,” Carol said, keeping her voice low and soothing. “Why don’t you sit down and have a little more to eat?”

He spun at her. “Don’t you use that fucking voice on me. I ain’t _Ed_.”

It _was_ the voice she’d used on Ed, she realized with a little quaver deep in her throat. But at this point, Daryl was almost as loud as her ex-husband had been, dangerous energy blowing off him in waves. Even Beth was edging away across the fire, and Hershel had a sharp eye on the other man.

“I know that,” Carol said steadily. “But Rick’s just trying to keep us safe.”

“What the hell you think I’m doing?” He exploded, whirling to find something to punch, but there were people all around him. He hauled off and kicked a log end hanging out of the fire, sending flames and sparks blasting up into the frigid night air. “Why you think I’m doing _all_ this? You dumb fuckin’ bitch!”

Carol didn’t even hear if the group around her had a reaction, because her gut was shrinking in on itself.

_Why do you think I do these things? Nobody else is ever going to want you, you dumb bitch. Nobody’s going to take care of you and Sophia if I don’t, and God knows you’re not smart enough to do it on your own._

Daryl was doing this for her. So she could bathe without walkers trying to eat her. So she could stay warm at night. Because he was trying to protect her.

Her shaking hand rose to her belly, but it brushed metal first. The brass knuckle grip of her trench knife.

That wasn’t the whole story, though, was it? Because she didn’t have to rely on him to protect her anymore. She could do it herself. Sometimes, she could even help protect him. She wasn’t helpless. And she wasn’t stupid.

Carol stood up.

Daryl kicked the fire again, a burning log shooting out onto the ground, but she just went around it and stepped up nose to nose with him.

“Carol, don’t,” somebody warned, but she didn’t look to see who it was. 

“The fuck you want now?” Daryl roared. “For me to hold yer hand because you’re too stupid to know when it’s time to stop runnin’ and fight? But how the hell would you know that, huh? You been runnin’ all your damn life!”

“The loudest voices,” she said, “come from the smallest men.”

His mouth hung open.

In the background, the fire snapped.

A squirrel chattered.

Hershel got to his feet, and Rick took a step closer.

“Baby, come over here,” Lori murmured to Carl.

Carol didn’t blink. “If you’re mad, you walk it off until you can tell me why. But you never, _never_ call me stupid again. You want me to not use the same voice on you that I used on my husband? Then don’t you act like him.”

Her voice shook, but her hands didn’t. She was done shrinking from men’s anger. If he felt like throwing a punch, she was damn well going to throw one right back.

Rick and Hershel both eased closer. “Now, son,” Hershel murmured, “Regret lasts longer than anger. Trust me, I know. Don’t do anything you might have cause to regret.”

Daryl’s eyes cut Hershel’s way, then to the other man coming up to protectively flank Carol. “That what you think of me?” he spat. “All this time, that’s what ya think? _Fuck_ you.”

He whirled, but he stepped back as he did it, so his shoulder didn’t so much as brush Carol before he disappeared into the woods. Without a flashlight, without a bow. Without anything more than the knife on his hip.

Knowing him, it’d take two or three days to walk off this mad. He’d come back bruised, dirty, and covered in something else’s blood.

“What did you do that for?” Beth burst out. “He didn’t mean anything by it. Daryl never does.”

Carol sank to sit on a damp log by the fire, suddenly exhausted. “I know he doesn’t.” She exhaled. “But it means something to me, Beth. When he says those things, I _hear_ them. And I can’t believe those things about myself anymore. If I go back to the way I was, I’ll die.” She stared at the ground. “Out here, I’ll die.”

#

The fire had burned down to glowing red coals when Carol felt a tug on her blankets. She rolled over, her hand half-casually going to her knife.

Daryl squatted just beyond the darkest layer of shadows. He beckoned quick, toward himself with two fingers. He wasn’t looking at her.

A lump stuck in her chest. This was it, then. Whatever the result would be of her line in the sand earlier. Whatever it would cost her to stand up for herself. It had always cost her something.

People at quarry camp, they sent her those pitying looks like she’d never fought back against Ed. She had. Harder and probably longer than any of them would have. But every time, it cost her more and more and more, until it was far easier to take a simple beating.

For just a second, she wished it could be that easy with Daryl.

She pushed back her blankets and stood up. And she didn’t apologize. What was done was done. No matter how she felt about him, no matter how precious their relationship was to her, she couldn’t give up the strength she’d found that she still had. Without that, she had even less than she’d have if she lost Daryl.

When he walked off into the dark woods, she followed.

It was only a half moon, but the light of it gleamed between the trees once they got away from the fire. So she could see it with perfect clarity when he reached for her knife.

She knocked his hand away. “No! You want to take back your friendship? You want to hate me? Fine. But you’re not taking that knife. That’s _my_ knife.”

He moved, hunter fast, and even though she tried to block him, he ripped it out of its sheath.

Silver moonlight bled across the blade and uncertainty flickered in her throat. She didn’t know him at all, in this moment.

He flipped the knife, caught it by the blade. He shoved it hilt-first toward her as he jerked back the leather sleeve of his jacket with the other hand. “Cut me.”

She blinked. “ _What_?”

“Want you to cut me. Where I can see it. And the next time I treat you like your husband did, you do it again.” He clenched his fist, like he was bracing for her to do it. When she just stared at him, he let out a ragged breath, shaking his head. “I don’t know, Carol. I cain’t be like Ed. Won’t. But I—I blow up. My daddy did, Merle did. Cain’t stop it. I’m always sorry after, but I can’t seem to stop right then. And I cain’t—”

“Bullshit.” She caught his face in both her hands, heedless of the knife between them. “You’ll throw a punch at the first person who pisses you off, but never if it’s a woman. Never Carl, no matter how much he nags you to let him shoot your bow or teach him to fish or ride the motorcycle. That’s control. You have it.”

His eyes held onto her face like it was the last thing left in the world.

She took the knife from him.

He lifted his hand again, offering the back of his wrist, the skin so taut it was almost twitching.

She tapped the knife on his wrist like a warning, though she would never, never cut him. Peeking out above the sheets in Hershel’s house, she’d seen the scars tearing up his back, ripping down his chest. But he needed a reason to _believe_ he could control himself, so she left the cold metal against his skin for just a second.

“First time’s free,” Carol said. “And there isn’t going to be a second time. You’re not your daddy. And you’re not Ed. Now go to sleep.”

She walked back to the fire without him, got his blanket out of the saddlebag of the motorcycle, and laid it next to hers.

When he came back and saw it there, his footsteps hesitated. Carol didn’t open her eyes, but she didn’t relax until she heard the rustle of him settling in next to her.

She still wasn’t sorry.

She’d seen the deep, ugly hurt in his eyes when he talked about being like his daddy. But it was exactly how she felt when he called her the same name her husband had. She didn’t want either of them to hurt, but sometimes, you needed to re-break a bone for it to heal straight. And for both of them, that’s exactly what she’d done. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: I realize this might be a controversial chapter for some people. My take is, I loved the scene after Sophia’s death when Carol let Daryl yell at her. She so deeply understood what he was really hurting about, that most of what he said bounced right off her. But at the same time, it’s always bothered me that it wouldn’t be good for her, long-term, to be with a guy who dealt with most emotions with loud, breaking-things outbursts including name calling and verbally hitting at her weakest points (which Merle also had a talent for, which is probably where Daryl learned it). So I wanted to include a scene of her putting her foot down and finally teaching him (because no one else ever had) that he’s capable of dealing with his anger in other ways.


	13. I Hear You

“It might as well be gold,” Glenn insisted. “A Target superstore, far enough on the outskirts of Atlanta that it’s not overrun? We could find more than we can carry. And I doubt anybody else has had the guts to go inside, dark and big as it is. Especially not with all those cars out front.”

“Right,” Rick said. “Because it’s probably full to the rafters with walkers.”

“So?” Daryl spat into the fire. “I ain’t afraid of no walkers.”

“There are a thousand dark back rooms inside a Target,” Lori said. “Not to mention all the aisles. It’s a deathtrap.”

“Who says we gotta pick through that maze for ‘em?” Daryl asked. “When the first gunshot goes off, they all come runnin’. So why the hell don’t we ever shoot it off before we go in, then pick ‘em off as they come to the door?”

Carol hid a smile, getting up to go to his motorcycle and dig in one of the side pockets.

“What you doin’?” He got up and came over, cagey as he always was about his few possessions.

“Easy there. I’m not trying on your panties.” She held up his whetstone and waggled it, going back in for the oil he’d taught her to use with it. “Just sharpening my knife.”

He grunted, but didn’t respond to her joke. Things had been a little uneasy with them since she told him in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t allowed to yell at her anymore. She came back to the fire and sat down, pulling her knife out of its sheath.

“Daryl’s right,” she commented to the group. “It’s what we should have been doing all along.”

His boots paused next to her, not kicking or scuffing around like they usually did when he had to stay in one place long enough for a conversation. She could feel him staring at her. Well, he could just get used to it. Sometimes he had good ideas and too often, Rick adopted them so fast that it seemed like they’d been his ideas all along. It would be good for Daryl to take a little credit now and then.

“So we pull the walkers out front, maybe try to finish ‘em off with bats and knives, save our ammo. Take a little breather, then clean the place out.” Daryl spoke as if he were in charge, though there was still an undercurrent of defensiveness to it.

“The sound could draw in more, though,” Carol said, slicking her knife along the whetstone. Daryl was watching her very closely and she kept expecting him to adjust her angle or something. Why else would he be staring at her hands like that? “I’ll come along, wait out front to keep watch so they can’t get in behind you.”

“What the hell would give you a stupid-ass idea like that?!” Daryl exploded.

Carol’s head snapped up and it was like the whole camp held its breath. He broke off only half a sentence into his new rant and his teeth clicked together audibly, he shut his mouth so hard. The fury in his eyes only flamed hotter, but she could tell this time it was aimed at himself. He whirled toward the forest but she dropped the knife and whetstone and caught his sleeve before he could get away.

“Hey!” She jumped in front of him, ducked her head to try to see his expression. Her heart was pounding because she only had one shot at this. Daryl guilty was damn near as volatile as Daryl mad. There was no end to the stupid things he could do if he thought he’d been treating her like Ed. “Because you think it’s too dangerous, right? Me standing watch?”

His throat bobbed and his eyes narrowed. “If there’s enough of ‘em to be a threat to us, there ain’t nothing you can do out front alone, ‘cept die. Ain’t worth it. Not even for a big store. I ain’t that hungry.”

She just about kissed him. Full on the mouth in front of everybody, for quoting back the words she’d said to him after he risked his life for a deer.

“Okay,” she said instead, letting go of his sleeve. “That’s all you had to say. And it’s a good point. What if I stay in a second car out front? It’s a big open parking lot. I should be able to see for a ways. If it’s just one or two, I’ll handle them. If a whole herd blows in, I’ll bonk the horn once so you’ll know to come out. I’ll stay in the car so they can’t get me, or I could even try to lead them away, then hit the gas and circle back. What do you think?”

He stared at her for a long, long moment. Long enough she heard Carl whispering, “Mom, is Daryl mad at Carol?”

“Shh, sweetie.”

Finally, Daryl nodded. Cleared his throat. “Uh-huh.”

Rick covered his grin by coughing into his fist. “It’s settled then. Glenn, me, Daryl and Maggie will go in. Everybody else will stay in camp. And with any luck, that store will score us enough supplies for the rest of the winter.”

Rick and Glenn turned back to the map and Carol nudged Daryl. “You should try not to look so surprised when people actually take your advice. It’s just common sense, after all. Don’t take no brains,” she drawled at him.

He scowled half-heartedly. “Stop.”

“You don’t have to yell at me, is all I’ve been trying to tell you,” she said, dropping her voice so the others couldn’t eavesdrop. “I hear you just fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Up next, Daryl confesses a secret to Carol about their time at quarry camp.


	14. Peeping Tom

Carol crept through the forest, doing her best to stay quiet, though leaves still rustled under her every step. She bent her knees and crouched slightly, mimicking how Daryl was walking ahead of her, but by the sound of it, she must be doing at least fifteen things wrong.

Finally, she sighed. “Are you going to tell me how to do it right, or are you just making a point?”

“Do what right?”

“Hunt. That’s what you said this was about. Teaching me to hunt.”

“And you believed me?” His mouth twitched, and he shouldered his crossbow. “Hell, woman. You ain’t got a whiskey’s chance in a honkey tonk of learning to hunt. You’re loud as hell and twice as bad a shot. Stick to walkers. They’s slow, big, and stupid.”

She scowled. “If we aren’t hunting, what are you creeping around for?”

“Just putting on a show till we got away from camp.” His eyes smiled a little, though his mouth stayed solemn. “Don’t tell me you wanted to stay there listening to Lori and Rick picking at each other. I’m about ready to divorce ‘em myself.”

She huffed out a breath, then shrugged. “True enough. So what are we doing?”

“Whatever you want. We can walk, maybe fish. I got some hooks, little bit o’ line.” His face brightened. “You like to fish?”

She laughed.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just, normally you can’t lie to save your life. I spotted it from a hundred miles the time you tried to cover for Carl about looking at those dirty magazines in the gas station. But if it comes to getting us out of camp to go fishing, well, that’s another matter.”

His hand went to the strap of his crossbow, and he started chewing on his lip.

Carol’s eyes narrowed. “What? Were you lying about the fishing, too?”

“No.” He turned and started walking.

She jogged to catch up, glancing around for walkers before she peered closer at him. “You lied about something, though, didn’t you?”

He ducked his head harder. “Can we just go fishin’?”

“Nope.” She grinned, happy to have the upper hand for once. “Was it when you told Rick you didn’t find any food at that last house?”

It wasn’t as urgent now that they’d done the run on that big store. They hadn’t managed to grab much before the walkers came in and Carol had to blow the horn to pull them back, but even a couple of armloads of cans was the difference between stress and relaxation, these days.

“You holding out on the Reese’s peanut butter cups again?” she teased. “That’s gonna cost you, buddy.”

He cut a glance sideways and her stomach fisted. She stopped walking.

“What, Daryl?” It was something serious, she could tell. What would he have lied to her about that was big? “Does Rick know? Are we in danger?”

She stopped walking and so did he, though he kept shifting his weight from foot to foot, his muscles surging like he wanted to go before he stopped himself.

“Ain’t nothing important,” he said unconvincingly.

She felt sick.

“Please,” she whispered. “Just tell me. I can handle it, whatever it is. We’re in this together, Daryl.” Pain streaked through her hand and only then did she realize how hard she was gripping the hilt of her knife. “Let me help you.”

He coughed out a breath, the way he sometimes did when he was getting stitched up. Like he was in pain and wouldn’t let himself cry out. He gripped the back of his neck, took a step, came back. “I lied ‘bout watching you,” he said.

She blinked, tried to sort out the meaning of his words. “What?”

“Not when the walkers attacked, last week. I wasn’t watchin’, then. But back in quarry camp, used to watch. All the time.” His face twisted. “Sorry.”

Her mouth fell open a little bit, and then she clapped a hand to her chest, starting to laugh.

He dared a glance up at her, messing with the strap on his crossbow. “What’s funny?”

She sank to the ground, her knees shaky, and laughed until her throat hurt. “I thought you were going to say a herd was coming, or we were out of bullets, or…” She didn’t even try to list the thousand dire scenarios that had gone through her head. “And it turns out you were just a peeping tom?”

“Not the other day,” he said again quickly. “Not with Beth there, and Rick’s wife.”

Her eyes narrowed. Had he been watching her, at the quarry camp, or all the women? He’d said he’d lied about watching _her._

“But at quarry camp, I didn’t bathe alone either,” she said slowly, every word choice feeling fraught with assumptions she was a little embarrassed to be making.

“Not when you brung Sophia,” Daryl said quickly. “I caught Merle going down to watch one of the days you had Sophia there, and I drug him off. Not that he likes little kids. He don’t like ‘em any younger than fourteen. But he wouldn’ta cared if she was there, long as he got to see the others.”

“So it was a family affair,” Carol said dryly, raising both eyebrows.

“Nah.” Daryl made a face. “Not watching together. That’s sick.”

“What?” She grinned. “Every time Maggie and I watched you guys skinny dipping in Hershel’s pond, _we_ did it together.”

He huffed his usual disgusted noise at her joke and she laughed. He flopped down next to her, reclining back on his side. She smiled a little wider, happy they were back to their “just us guys” comfort.

“I didn’t know any of y’all back then. You’s just girls to me,” he said. “I shouldn’ta. But I’s horny. I did, couple of times.”

She patted his arm. “I forgive you for using us as your personal Hustler. I doubt you were the only ones, considering we had a matched set of blondes there for a while.”

“Andrea?” He grimaced. “Girl’s a pain in my ass.”

“Doesn’t mean you didn’t enjoy hers.”

He grunted, brushing that off, and squinted up at her. “Why ain’t you mad?”

“That you were ogling the women back at quarry camp?” She shrugged. “Lots to be mad about, these days. That doesn’t hardly register.”

“But the other day, when I saw you…” He pulled a piece of grass out by the roots, starting to shred it. “You were—” She watched his lips form the m for mad, but then he seemed to change his mind. “Sad. Or upset. Or somethin’. Couple days there, you were. Weren’t talking much to me. So why don’t it bother you I was doing it on purpose at quarry camp, and lyin’ about it, even?”

She stared at him. Every way she twisted his words in her mind, they came out the same. He hadn’t been watching them at quarry camp. He’d been watching _her._ Even though she’d had her head shaved nearly bald and had the confidence of a stepped-on mouse. He wasn’t upset that he’d seen her topless. He thought _she_ was upset.

Suddenly everything he’d done since then changed to a different light. The way he’d bumped her shoulder on the steps, trying to make it up to her by teaching her self defense tricks. The way he’d brought her extra food for days, like peace offerings. The way his eyes had skittered away from her even more than normal. He hadn’t been repulsed by looking at her. He’d been trying _not_ to look.

But like a poorly fitted key, the thoughts wouldn’t turn inside her head. She had to know. It was stupid, and reckless, and maybe it would ruin everything, but she had to know.

She reached out and touched his leather-clad wrist, stilling his hands where they worried at the grass. “Daryl? Were you watching…me?”

A shout rang out through the trees, followed quickly by the spiking moans of excited walkers.

They both jumped to their feet, but he caught her when she started toward camp. “It’s this way.” He pulled back his crossbow, threw a bolt into it, and took off running. She jerked the gun out of the back of her pants and sprinted after him.

They saw the walkers first, a whole cluster of them. Daryl shot the first and then stopped to yank back his crossbow to load a second bolt. She planted her feet and aimed, but she couldn’t see the humans and didn’t want to risk hitting one, so she ran closer when Daryl did. When he stopped to shoot a second, she took aim at a rotund walker on the fringes. It took her three shots, but she finally brought it down. Somebody screamed, and she heard tearing flesh. God, what kind of world was this that she recognized the _sound_ of it?

Motions blurred. She fired and stabbed, backing up to give herself space when she had to reload, shooting walkers off Daryl when he had to reload. Time stopped and everything was just fear laced with the comforting twang of his bowstring. She didn’t even look at the people they’d saved until the walkers were all dead.

“Holy shitballs. It’s a woman.” The man who said it stared at her wide-eyed. He was young, with wide shoulders and a belly that made her think he’d had a paunch not long ago. He wore a University of Oklahoma hoodie and scavenged sweatpants a few inches too short, but a gold watch glittered from his wrist that would have cost the same as two of her old SUVs, back before the turn. Somehow, she bet he’d been in the fraternity house section of UO.

There was a human still gasping on the ground, blood spurting from the bite wound in his neck. Guy looked barely twenty, with bright purple hair. Daryl stepped up and put a bolt through his forehead, keeping an eye on the other two as he pulled it out. “He’s bit,” he grunted, in case they were planning on arguing. Neither of them looked away from Carol.

The shorter of the two had a narrow acne-scarred face, his gray eyes too close together. With the blood streaked across his face, they looked scary bright.

“Did you see any more stumblers?” Frat Boy said, quickly reloading his gun and glancing out at the forest.

“Nah,” Daryl said, reclaiming his arrows and wiping them on the rag from his pocket, one by one. “That was plenty enough, I guess.”

Gray Eyes started to reload. Carol roused herself, trying to ignore the post-adrenaline trembling as she hit the button to kick out her empty magazine and do the same.

“Don’t bother,” a voice said.

She looked up into the barrel of a gun.


	15. Taken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Warning for verbal references to sexual assault and just generally coarse language from this pair of jerks, who clearly do not know who they are dealing with.

“Put down that crossbow, nice and easy and we’ll let you two off alive,” the man with the Frat Boy said, his automatic pistol trained right on Daryl’s face.

Carol could barely look away from the black hole of the pistol she was looking down. She blinked and tried to focus on the man with gray eyes behind it.

Daryl spat. “We just saved your asses!”

“Not Tony’s.” Gray Eyes nodded to their dead friend.

Frat Boy shrugged. “It’s not personal. It’s a hard world these days. We appreciate your help, but you’ve got some things we need.”

Carol glanced at Daryl, tensing. She was out of bullets and she didn’t think she was fast enough to stab this guy before he shot her, but if they laid down their weapons, these guys could do anything they wanted to them. Daryl shook his head. She dropped her empty pistol on the ground. She didn’t reach for her knife. She’d need that just to get back to camp alive. Surely these guys would leave them that much.

But Frat Boy shook his head, taking her knife out of her belt too, and she wilted a little. She could get another, but that was the one Daryl had given her. No other weapon would ever fit her hand as well. Both their guns were on Daryl, and Gray Eyes turned away from her, circling around while Daryl threw down his crossbow and knife. Then Gray Eyes kicked him in the back, throwing him down onto his knees.

Carol leapt forward and Frat Boy threw out a hand, knocking her back with a casual backhand. She staggered, familiar pain exploding in her cheekbone. Her stomach shrank and for a second, she wanted to curl into her old ball on the forest floor. These weren’t walkers. These were men. And they were all the same, weren’t they? Something gray and hopeless dragged at her, but she snapped out of it when they kicked Daryl in the ribs.

“Hey!” she shouted. “Look, you want what we have? Fine. Take it.” Her voice steadied and she started to feel like herself again. “But leave him alone.”

“Oh, we will,” Frat Boy said. “We don’t hold with killing live ones. That’s just inhuman, these days.” He pulled a cord out of his pocket and planted a booted foot in Daryl’s back.

Daryl grunted, twisting his head around until he could see Carol. She shook her head quickly and he stopped struggling.

“The more you fight, the more bones we break, you got it?” The guy leaned down and looped the cord around his wrists, yanking the ropes tight. He put his gun away and Gray Eyes covered them both as his friend hauled Daryl to his feet and shoved him over against a tree, tying the end of the cord around the trunk with quick, efficient knots.

Daryl watched them. Very still behind the loose strands of his hair. And somehow, even with his hands tied behind his back, he looked like he was just about to strike. Goosebumps raked Carol’s arms and her hands bound into fists.

“Don’t fight,” she begged him. “Please, Daryl. Just let them take whatever they want.” It wasn’t worth it. Not their guns, not even his precious crossbow. They’d shoot him in a second if he resisted and everything would be over. Nothing was worth that.

She held out her hands to be tied, not even trying to hide their trembling because she needed them to keep seeing her as helpless.

Gray Eyes smiled. “We don’t need to do that, little lady. You’re not going to give us any trouble, are you?”

She shook her head, trying to dredge up some tears. But all she wanted was to lock her hands around the man’s throat and start to squeeze. “Please don’t kill us,” she begged, trying to put a flutter in her voice. “I’ll do anything you want.”

“Oh, we’re not going to kill you. You’re going to be the most popular girl in camp. Annie’s getting a little worn down, these days.” Frat Boy grinned. “Can’t blame her. Twelve’s a lot, even for a healthy girl like her. But having you around is going to help a lot.”

Daryl bolted forward, his shoulders hyperextending in an unnatural-looking angle as he tried to reach Frat Boy. Daryl rammed him with his head, and Frat Boy staggered. When he clapped a hand to his forehead, it came away bloody. His eyes narrowed and he sucker-punched Daryl in the belly, hard enough his legs buckled and his whole weight fell onto the ropes.

Carol threw herself at Daryl, protecting him with her body as she grabbed something off the ground and boosted him back onto his feet. “Don’t,” she warned. “Don’t fight.”

She pressed a sharp rock into his hand, behind his back.

The anguish in his eyes was too much to look at, but she made herself look at him anyway, trying to reassure him with her steadiness.

“I’m not _that_ hungry,” she said clearly, hoping like hell he’d remember the deer. Because twelve men wasn’t too many. Not when she had fire and sharp rocks and walkers on her side. Poison, once they let her start cooking. Pretty much every convoy carried antifreeze along with the cars, and she’d read it tasted sweet as sugar. She’d kill as many of them as she could and she’d escape. Daryl would find her. If she left a track anywhere in this world, he’d find her.

“Listen to the lady,” one of the men said as they pulled her away. “She’s trying to keep you alive.”

Frat Boy holstered his gun, keeping a safe distance from Daryl. “Better get to work on those ropes, friend. If you don’t wriggle out before the next stumblers come through, nature’s gonna take its course. And in case you get free quick and think about trying to reclaim your share of what’s left of the world’s pussy…” He grinned. “Let’s just say there’s only twelve of us, but we’ve got enough guns to make it feel like fifty.”

Gray Eyes tugged at Carol’s elbow. “Start walking. If you try anything, we’ll break your arm. You got two arms and two legs. I figure that’s four chances. The normal three and a bonus, just because we’re nice guys.”

She made her head drop and followed them. Behind her, Daryl was utterly silent. Of course he was. He’d never give anything away in front of their enemies. But she almost wished he would have said something, in case it was a long time before they saw each other again.

How long would it be before she could get her hands on a weapon? She’d never been forced by a man she didn’t know, much less several. She tried to brace herself, make a strategy for enduring through it until she could find an opportunity to escape. But somehow, she couldn’t imagine just lying still in the midst of all that pain and humiliation. Not now, not after everything.

“There’s no reason to take her back to camp before we’ve had our turns,” Gray Eyes said after a while. “We found her, and you know Eric’s going to take first. You only get one first.”

The other guy snorted. “Great argument, considering there’s two of us. You gonna give me first, then, I guess?”

“I don’t normally go for the silver fox ladies, but this one…” Gray Eyes looked her up and down. “Let’s flip for it.”

“She better not have no wrinkled pussy,” Frat Boy said, digging for a quarter.

Any other day, it might have made her shrink with shame. How casually they treated her like she was the last woman in the world. Maybe not even desirable, just another hole.

But Daryl had just admitted he used to watch her bathe. Her, not the young and beautiful Amy or Andrea. He’d blushed when he said it, like was picturing it all over again. Today, she felt strong. She’d just killed walkers these guys couldn’t kill themselves. She was stronger than they were.

“Can you go first?” Carol turned to Gray Eyes and placed a tentative hand on his chest, looking up into his eyes. “And maybe, be gentle?”

He grinned, and she kneed him in the balls. Before he was even fully doubled over, she reclaimed her knife from his belt and crammed it up into his jaw. Adrenaline screaming, she whirled and stabbed Gray Eyes in the temple. It wasn’t as easy with a live person as a half-rotten walker. Her knife only went partway in and stuck. He gasped and fell onto the ground, starting to convulse. She braced one foot against his chest, wrenching her knife free and planting it squarely in his eye this time.

A twig snapped behind her and she whirled, expecting a walker.

It was Daryl, wild-eyed and panting as he lurched to a stop, a broken-off branch clutched in one hand. Blood dripped from his fingers, his wrists skinned raw. She winced and reached to check his scrapes. “How much damage did you do?”

“Did they—”

“Didn’t even get their zippers down.”

He reached for her, his face so wrenched with emotion she hardly recognized him. But his hands paused in midair before they ever reached her, balled into fists, and then he turned and started kicking the corpses.

She wrapped her arms around herself and let him get it out for a second. At least until his foot connected with a jaw and she heard the crack of bone. Then she grimaced. “Daryl. Hey.”

He was breathing in big, choking gasps, kicking even after the blood started to fly, and she felt the first frisson of fear start to quiver in her. She touched his arm and he shook her off, so she grabbed him. Wrapped her arms around him from behind and held on. “I’m okay,” she whispered. “Everything’s okay.”

“They took you! Right outta my hands, they just took you. I thought they’s just gonna rob us and I let ‘em tie me up and then—” He sagged against her hands. “They coulda—”

“They couldn’t,” she interrupted. “I wasn’t going to let them get me back to their main camp, and even if I’d failed, you were barely a minute behind me. I was safe. I was safe the whole time.” She tried to turn him. “You, on the other hand, barely have a scrap of skin left on either of your wrists. What, did you think I couldn’t last five more minutes?” She gave him a scolding look, and immediately regretted her levity when she saw his face.

He wouldn’t let her check on his wrists, so she retrieved his crossbow and stripped the weapons off the two men. Even dug in their pockets for every last bullet. Daryl just stood there like some string in him had been cut. She’d never seen him be so motionless. He was always busy, with something. It made the edge of panic tease at her, but she was careful not to show it.

“The others,” he said suddenly. “Twelve. They said twelve and there’s only two here.” He threw the crossbow onto his back and grabbed her hand. “We gotta go.”

She ran beside him all the way back. The pace was too fast for her, but she didn’t complain because at least he was moving again. Maybe Rick could talk to him or something.

They burst into camp so urgently that everyone came to their feet, scrambling for guns.

“What happened?” Rick strode forward.

“Two guys from another group took Carol,” Daryl said. “She killed both of ‘em. I’m gonna kill the rest.” He let go of her hand and went straight for the guns.

“What?” Glenn burst out. “What do you mean, ‘took’ Carol?”

Maggie shot him a look and came right over, followed closely by Lori. “You need to sit down, sweetie? Are you hurt?”

Carol took the water bottle they pressed on her and waved them off, mildly irritated. They were treating her like she was crazy, just like they had after Sophia died. She wasn’t crazy. Well, maybe she was, because a normal person would feel something right now. Guilt, probably, or shock. She just watched Daryl lining guns up on the tailgate, and the only fear she felt was for him.

“There’s ten of them,” he said. “One girl they got prisoner. Who’s coming with me?”

“Me,” Rick said. “But we should slow down for a second and make a plan.”

“I know what direction they was headed. Follow that to their camp. Kill ‘em. Burn the bodies.” Daryl cracked open a shotgun and checked the barrel to see if it was clean. “I ain’t waitin’ for shit.”

T-dog took a look at Carol, and joined Daryl at the tailgate.

Glenn stood up.

Maggie whirled. “Oh hell no, you aren’t! A gunfight like that? Are you crazy? The whole lot of us together has no business taking on ten armed men, much less just the four of you.”

“She’s right,” Carol said quietly. “I don’t like leaving them out there either, but it’s too dangerous. We should move out of this area.” A pang went through her throat. _Annie._ “Or at least hang back, watch until we can catch them one by one, unaware.”

“No.” Daryl didn’t turn around, and for once, he didn’t look to Rick for an opinion.

“And what happens if they kill all of you?” Carol said. “It’s not worth it.”

Daryl spun around. “Don’t you fucking tell me it ain’t. They _had_ you. They—”

Rick stepped in, took him by the shoulders. “But they don’t now,” he said. “She took care of that, and now we’re going to take care of them. But we’ll do it smart.”

Daryl threw him off so hard Rick staggered back a few steps. “There’s four women in this camp. And who the fuck knows how many other women left alive near here that they could hurt. Fuck waitin’. Those assholes are dying tonight if I have to kill every one o’ them myself.”

Glenn walked over quietly and began loading a gun.

“No!” Maggie stalked over and tried to grab it from him. He didn’t let it go. He just looked at her.

“I don’t expect you to understand this,” Glenn said. “And you can be as mad at me as you want. But there are some things a man has to do himself.”

“Well, if that isn’t the biggest load of patronizing crap I’ve ever heard,” Maggie exploded. “I could go and kill me some rapists, too. It isn’t like I trip on my tits every time I try to pull a trigger. I’m just not about to do it right before the light’s gone with no damn plan when we’re outnumbered!It’s idiotic and on a good day, you’d be the first to say it. But Daryl throws a fit and suddenly you’ve all got your dicks out, measuring them against his.”

“That’s enough,” Hershel said.

He and Glenn locked eyes across the campsite. He gave a little nod and Glenn turned away and kept loading the gun.

Maggie ground her teeth. “Oh, hell no. If you think my daddy and my boyfriend get to team up and make decisions about my life—”

Daryl whipped around and grabbed her arm. Glenn dropped the gun on the tailgate, his eyes going wide as he glanced between them.

“Any other run,” Daryl growled. “I’d tell you to shut the hell up and come with us. You’re a real good shot. But this ain’t any other run and I know those sumbitches got us better than two to one. If we fuck this up, you cain’t be there for what comes after. I ain’t your daddy and I ain’t your boyfriend, and I’m telling ya anyway. Don’t make Glenn watch them get their hands on you.”

He let her go, and for the first time since Carol had met her, Maggie seemed speechless. Carol crossed the camp and took her by the hand. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get our things together to defend camp.”

“Don’t have a fire tonight. And leave if we ain’t back by dawn,” Daryl said. “You can wait for us for two days, back at that mansion what had the pond. If we ain’t there by then, hightail it north on the side roads and don’t never come back.”

He didn’t look at anything but the guns when he said it, but she knew he was talking to her. He took off his belt and started loading gun holsters onto it. One pistol. Two. Three. Then holders for loaded magazines. A spare knife, nearly a foot long.

“All right.”

He glanced a little sideways, but didn’t look right at her. “You gonna tell me it ain’t worth it again?”

“No.”

His fingers paused on the magazine he was loading. She took it out of his hands, finished it up. Well aware the entire camp was listening to every word they said.

“I know you,” she said. “You have to do this, or I might as well kill you myself for how crazy you’ll be.” She handed back the loaded magazine. “Though I do think it would be better revenge if you didn’t get yourself shot in the process.”

Rick chuckled, but Daryl just took the magazine. He went back to the truck and got his extra quiver of crossbow bolts. The wooden ones that were only good for one use and didn’t fly as straight, and every single aluminum one he’d been hoarding.

“I’m going to stay here,” Hershel said. “Help to guard the camp.”

Daryl nodded, said something quiet to Lori, and headed into the woods. The other three men followed.

“And now,” Carol said. “We wait.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: If anybody needs cheering up after that cliffhanger, I can report that I just wrote the “I love you” scene for this fic, and it is really freaking weird. Like, really weird. In a good way. I think. Maybe. You’ll have to tell me when you get there.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Warning for some verbal discussion of sexual assault in this chapter. Nothing too terrible or explicit.

The gunfire only lasted twenty minutes. After forty, a plume of flame erupted far away in the trees, as if from a huge bonfire. Even from camp, it smelled like burning bodies. Carol watched it and told herself bad guys didn’t bother to burn corpses. She told herself the people that were burning were already dead, but she still listened for screams.

None came.

Maggie spent most of the time cursing out an argument about patriarchy and antiquated methods of proving manhood. Hershel cleaned his shotgun. Carl was grouchy and kept getting himself in trouble for messing with things. Lori tried to get Carol to talk, but she wasn’t in the mood.

After an hour and twenty-two minutes, Carol’s head came up. “I hear cars,” she said. “Everybody get into the woods.” Her heart pounded so hard in her throat she felt sick. She’d almost convinced herself their men had won. Even at 2.5 to 1 odds. But when they left for the other campsite, they hadn’t taken vehicles.

Safe in the shadow of the trees, she leaned her gun against a trunk and waited. The cars pulled in, not even hesitating at the mostly-hidden gap in the bushes that was the entrance to this campsite. The engines shut off.

“Should we run?” Lori whispered.

“Yes,” Carol said, sighting down the barrel of her gun. “I’ll be right behind you.”

“Let’s watch for one more minute,” Hershel insisted.

A man got out of the passenger side of the car and stalked around, right into the face of the man who got out of the driver’s seat. “Don’t you _ever_ pull something like when my son can see you, you hear me?” It was Rick’s voice.

The other man didn’t respond, but now she could see the outline of the crossbow on his back.

She lowered her gun. Out of the second car, two shapes got out.

“Glenn!” Maggie bolted from the trees.

Daryl grabbed a bucket of water from one of the trucks and headed off toward the trees.

Carol holstered her gun and closed her eyes, tremors raking over her whole body. This day…it had been too much. Too much of everything. From Daryl’s confession that seemed to hint at a crush that had lasted longer than she ever expected, to the attack and everything that might have happened. To killing two live men. But mostly from listening to every gunshot and knowing if Daryl died tonight, it would be her fault.

She stumbled back into camp, suddenly exhausted.

Rick caught her the arm, stopping her when she got to their newly stolen cars. She looked past him to Daryl. He’d stripped all the way to his boxers and was sluicing frozen water over himself. He never took off his clothes in front of the group unless he needed stitches. Not even in the dark.

“Give him some space tonight,” Rick said. “You didn’t see him out there. I don’t think he’s in his right mind just now.”

“I’m safe as a kitten with that man,” Carol said. “I don’t care who he killed or how he did it. I killed today, too, Rick. And I’m not sorry, either.”

“I understand,” he said solemnly. “I just—”

She waved him off. “I know. How was it?”

“Too easy. They were drunk and we picked most of them off from the trees before they even figured out we were there.We found that girl, but she was already dead. After that, Daryl got a little carried away with the last few guys that were only wounded.”

Her jaw clenched. _Annie._ Daryl wouldn’t be better, then. He’d be worse.

“Give us some privacy, would you?” she asked Rick.

“Happy to.”

“Thanks for backing him up,” she said. “I know you didn’t want to.”

“It was the right thing to do. Bunch of guys like that. I just wasn’t sure if he was going to go off half-cocked.”

“I know.” She gathered up their blankets from the motorcycle saddlebags, and a little food, giving Daryl plenty of time to get his clean clothes on. But once he did, she was waiting just behind him. He slicked water out of his hair and she handed him his crossbow.

“Sit with me?”

He nodded, wild energy still rolling off him along with the scent of smoke. Used to be, he’d yell when he got like this, or break something. But he wouldn’t now and she knew it.

She sat down facing him, knee to knee. She took his hands and folded them over the back of her neck, pulling him in so she could lay her head on his shoulder. His trembling shook both their bodies. It was closer than they normally were with each other, but he let her. She didn’t think there was much he’d deny her, tonight. He laid his head in her neck, breathing in big, unsteady gulps. It wasn’t quite sobbing, but the only thing missing were tears.

She held him, and let him think he was the one holding her. And little by little, it tore her apart. Feeling his helplessness, his horror.

“You know what I realized tonight?” she whispered.

His head moved a little against her neck, and his calloused hand tightened on her shoulder. Not moving an inch past where she’d put it, but he wasn’t letting her go either.

“You’ve been there for all the worst moments of my life. Ed dying—I mean, he wasn’t husband of the year, but it was terrifying to lose him, all the same. I spent my whole adult life with that man, and then to be alone, in a world like this, with no one to protect me or Sophia?” She let out a breath. “God. And then you were there with me when Sophia came out of the barn. The night the farm burned and I screamed, thinking everyone was long gone, you came out of the night like a prayer. And then tonight. You were there every time.”

“What the hell’s that say?” he rasped, sitting back.

She locked eyes with him. “It says I’m lucky.”

He dropped his arms over his knees, sagging like he was tired. After a minute, he shook his head. “Worst thing that happened in my whole life, I don’t even know if it happened. Think about it all the time. Shouldn’t.”

She frowned. “What do you mean, you don’t know if it happened?”

“What Shane said, ‘bout me lookin’ like a meth head with a buck knife. That all those times I called for Sophia…What if she saw me? Saw what I looked like. There was all those times I was acting rough, ‘round camp with Merle. Yellin’. What if she didn’t answer cause she was scared o’ me? What if she didn’t know I wouldn’t hurt her?” His face cracked, and he dropped his head, his shoulders heaving beneath the cries he wouldn’t let himself voice earlier.

Carol felt sick. She gripped his arms. He jerked away, dragging her halfway to her feet, but she wouldn’t let go. “Daryl. Daryl, don’t. Listen to me.” She pulled him back down to sitting, held onto him. “Hershel told me he didn’t know Sophia was in that barn. Otis put her there. So she probably did stay at that house where you found the oyster cans and the blanket, but she died in the first couple of days when we were still looking for her as a group. She never saw you. She never heard you call. She wasn’t afraid of you.”

He was holding his breath now, using all his strength not to make a sound, and she curled into his taut body, laying her head into the curve of his neck.

“I know,” she whispered, “that if she’d been alive, you would have found her. I’ll go to my grave believing that.”

A small, ragged exhale escaped him and she pulled back.

“Daryl. Look at me. It didn’t happen. She never ran away from you. And tonight, with those men. That didn’t happen, either. Even if I wouldn’t have killed them, you were coming after me sooner or later and I knew it. I knew I was safe.”

“Even a few minutes,” he said. “That’s all it’d take for them to hurt you. I’s trying to cut the ropes with that rock you gave me but it was too slow. And they coulda been _touching_ you, that whole time. So I just ripped my hands out of the ropes and ran.”

“Listen.” She cupped the back of his neck and pressed her cheek to his, so no one else in camp could hear. “They couldn’t hurt me. Not really. When you get rid of the self loathing, the feeling that you’re tainted, that your body isn’t yours…when you take all that away, it’s just sex. When you put that knife in my hand, Daryl…” She stopped, emotion welling up so strong she could barely contain it. “My body’s mine. My life is _mine_ now. A hundred men could have sex with me, but no one will ever rape me again.”

She took a breath, her cheek resting against his, feeling the quaking in his muscles beneath her palm.

“You think you failed me tonight. But you’ve already protected me against everything that could ever happen. What Ed did to me, when he made me so small? No one can do that to me anymore. I don’t have it left in me to be a victim.”

He took a breath, then another, and his hands touched her arms. Settled there, just for a second before he fidgeted away, and she felt the loss immediately.

He lifted his head finally, but just to shove at his watering eyes. Tears stung hers in response, and her heart squeezed in her chest.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“ _Don’t_.”

He jerked at the ferocity of her tone.

“Don’t you ever apologize, Daryl Dixon. Not for that. No one in my whole life has cared enough to hurt for me.” She shook her head, lost at the depth of his response. “Most people just look right on past me. I never could figure out why you didn’t.”

He looked at her then, and he didn’t say anything. Not for a long time. She couldn’t see his face in the dark, but she could feel him growing calmer, the chaotic energy in him starting to quiet for the first time tonight.

“Lucky?” he asked gruffly.

She took his hand. “Very lucky.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Carol’s views on rape are not meant to be universal, or applicable to every case, or anything other than her specific thoughts about it at this very specific moment in time. I don’t think that in general, feeling more empowered means that rape wouldn’t be a negative experience. I do, however, think Carol is growing more resilient to the psychological backlash of abuse thanks to developing a more positive opinion of her self-worth and to having the emotional support of her new family.


	17. Shh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Warning for some discussion about sexual assault. There are only 2 sentences where it gets graphic, but if you have a history with rape or sexual assault, I would suggest you skip this chapter or scroll to the second scene, and I’ll provide a summary of what happened at the beginning of the next chapter so you won’t miss anything plot-wise.

Carol knew Daryl was awake. First, because she was laying on his chest. And second, because his eyes were so, so blue.

It’s rare that she got to see them so straight on, without him moving away or blinking. She wasn’t sure she’d ever remembered him being awake for more than thirty seconds without rolling to his feet. Stretching with a wince, always, for whatever his latest injury was. Picking up his crossbow. Checking the bolt, the string, slinging it onto his back.

She blinked, a little groggy. She didn’t usually sleep so deeply. Why was she on Daryl’s chest?

And then she remembered. Gray Eyes. Frat Boy. _She better not have no wrinkled pussy._ She closed her eyes, felt their hands on her arms. Those hands would have been everywhere. She flinched in spite of herself and her stomach went sour, kicking bile up onto the back of her tongue as older memories crept in.

_Her legs stretched apart, hips sore. That tearing rawness she could never ignore, no matter how far she drifted from her body._

Something touched her ribs. Then settled in and squeezed. It was warm and solid: Daryl’s hand. She gulped a breath, not wanting to open her eyes. She’d told him she was fine. She’d _been_ fine. He didn’t need to see that right now, she wasn’t.

“Hey.” His chest flexed under her cheek, the rumble so low she wasn’t sure if he’d really said it out loud.

She shook her head. She couldn’t face him, not yet. His arms tightened around her and unbelievably, he hauled her further up onto his chest.

“Shh,” he said. It was more like a low purr, way down deep in his belly. The way the motorcycle sounded when she wore the earplugs he gave her. “Shh.”

Her muscles relaxed. This was a dream. Not real. In real life, Daryl didn’t hold her.

In real life, she was fine. She didn’t care if she’d had to kill two men. Not considering what kind of men they were. And she didn’t care about what they were going to do to her, because they hadn’t done it.

None of this was real. None of it mattered.

And so, because it wasn’t real, she wriggled up further on Daryl. His chest went stiff and hard beneath her until she tucked her face into his neck.

He was clean. Daryl in real life was never clean. He was always streaked with dirt and the blood of something he’d killed for the group: walker or animal or human. Dusted with grit from crawling under the truck to fix it or yanking Carl out of some tree he’d stupidly climbed and couldn’t get down from. Daryl was never clean.

It gave her the solace she needed to draw a shaky breath and start to cry. Into his clean, imaginary neck. Because she didn’t want those men to touch her. She didn’t want to stab a living person, not ever. She didn’t want Daryl to be hurt or tied to a tree or for him to be so far out of his mind she couldn’t even recognize him in his own eyes anymore.

“Shh,” Daryl said, low and sweet, so she knew he wasn’t real, and she cried harder. “I got ya. Shh.”

#

When she woke again, Carol was warm and alone and the ground was too soft. She blinked down at the blankets folded beneath her. It was so light. Too light to be sleeping. She rubbed her eyes and looked for Daryl. He’d stayed with her last night, shared their blankets between both of them. She hadn’t even pretended it was because of the weather. Just told him she didn’t want to be alone. Which was true, but more than that, she thought he’d be calmer if he was with her. He didn’t even get up to take a watch, for the very first time since they left the farm.

She squinted around, finally spotting him just beyond the trucks, crossbow riding his back as he yelled at Lori.

She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but his face just _looked_ like he was yelling. She frowned and started to sit up so she could intervene, but then he reeled himself in. Stared at the ground. Said something else.

Lori touched his arm, saying something, and Carol frowned more deeply. He wasn’t shrugging her off. Instead, he started talking again, which immediately escalated to yelling. He stomped away from Lori, kicked the truck, and popped back into her face. This time, Rick came over with his calm cop face on.

Carol grimaced. Yeah, she was definitely going to have to get into this one. She stretched her back and sat up. Her mouth tasted awful.

All three stopped talking when they saw her.

Daryl came over and squatted down by her blankets. “Hey.” Three of his fingernails were bleeding like he’d been biting at hangnails again, and his wrists looked like hamburger where he’d ripped them out of the rope.

“Why were you yelling at Lori?” she asked through a yawn.

“Wasn’t. You uh—” He picked at his fingers. “You hungry?” he tried.

She smiled. “What I am is less fidgety and grumpy than you. Why don’t you go shoot an innocent animal or torment Glenn or something until you feel better.”

He glanced to her face, surprised. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She stretched out her legs, feeling old and hoping she didn’t look it. “Yesterday was shit. Kill something for me, too, huh?”

“Rabbit?”

He knew she liked rabbit.

“Anything,” she said. “Even a really ugly walker would do.”

He smirked. “Ain’t hard to find an ugly walker.”

“Well, challenge yourself then. Only kill the pretty ones.” She patted his knee.

He rose and took off for the woods with smooth strides. Carol threw off her blankets, pushing to her feet. She swallowed. In her dream, she’d been weak, scared. But that wasn’t going to happen to her again. She wouldn’t allow it. She knew all too well that when you cracked the door for fear, a whole world of it pushed its way inside until you were helpless before all the terrible things that might ever happen.

“How you doing, sweetie?” Lori asked. “You ready for some breakfast?”

Carol hopped up to sit on the tailgate of the truck. “I’m ready for everybody to stop treating me like I’m going to break. Just because Daryl freaked out doesn’t mean I’m going to.”

Rick was over at the next truck, pretending not to listen, but a quick smile crossed his face at that.

“What was he yelling at you about?” she asked Lori.

The taller woman looked her in the eye. “He asked me how to help you.”

Carol blew out a breath, feeling more tired than when she’d first woken up. “Shit.”

“I think you should tell him,” Lori said.

“What?” Carol wrinkled her nose. She was okay. A little more shaken than she wanted to be, but not bad, overall. What was Lori trying to say?

At the other truck, Rick pointedly picked up a water container and headed out toward the stream.

“Tell him what you need,” her friend said.

A pang of surprisingly sharp pain hit her in the throat and she closed her eyes. “What if I don’t know what that is?”

“You do.” Lori’s voice was steady. “You think it’ll be more complicated than just getting what you’re hoping for. And it will be. Harder, messier.”

When Carol opened her eyes, Lori was looking into the woods, after her husband. “But worth it,” Lori said quietly. “Like a child, you know?”

Carol blinked against burning eyes. She was so tired of crying. This world seemed determined to wring out every last tear she had left. “Yeah,” she said hoarsely. “I remember.”

Because she wouldn’t give back Sophia. Even now. Even knowing that most of their lives would be spent dodging Ed, and how soon their time together would end. How violently. Her little girl had changed her, had changed the world in so many beautiful ways it would be purely evil to undo.

She just wished she could have given Sophia a father like Daryl.

Carol pulled her knees up into her chest, like she was a teenage girl again. For once she ignored the whole camp around her as it got packed up and didn’t even try to help. But by the time they were done, she had a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Up next, I have kind of a special treat for you. Something completely different. I hope that you will like it.


	18. DELETED SCENE: Tracks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: So I’m going to do something a little different here. I want to toss in just a couple of Daryl POVs to give you guys a peek at his thoughts, but since we’re all die-hard fans, I figure the best way to do it is in deleted scenes, little extras that don’t need to be read along with the normal flow of the story, but are fun for those of us who want a deeper look. Because I know y’all are the kind who watch ALL the extras on the TWD DVD sets. The couple of deleted scene Daryl POV chapters will be marked as such, because the main story can be understood without them.
> 
> #
> 
> SUMMARY FOR THOSE WHO SKIPPED LAST CHAPTER: In the last chapter, Carol woke up and was really upset about nearly getting kidnapped. Daryl had slept next to her, was clean from showering, and held her to comfort her, but because all those things were so weird, she mostly convinced herself it was a dream. Thinking it was a dream let her give herself permission to be upset and not be okay for a second. She fell back asleep and when she woke up the second time, she saw Daryl very agitated and talking to Lori. When questioned, Lori said he was asking her how to help Carol, and urges Carol to “tell him what she needs” in regards to the attack and their relationship. Carol does some thinking and comes up with a plan about what she wants, but the chapter doesn’t reveal what the plan IS.

**DELETED SCENE: Tracks**

She wasn’t mad.

Any woman in the world would be mad if you told them you were peeping on them nekkid, far as Daryl could figure. Hell, he’d knock a man halfway to Canada if he caught them watching her now. Merle used to watch, too, back in quarry camp. He had a thing for Andrea, but it still gave Daryl a nasty, twisted up feeling down in his guts to know Carol was down there when Merle would go to get his eyeful.

Carol didn’t move like she was beautiful. That was part of his fantasy, back then. Part of what made his pants tight to bursting and kept him out in the trees for hours and hours when the group thought he was hunting.

She kept her shoulders curved inward like she was trying to hide her breasts, and she washed herself matter-of-factly. Like her body was an object, like she didn’t even notice how her hands slid over slim hips and small, pert breasts. He pictured his hands touching her instead. Even in his fantasies, they shook. But they touched her like she was beautiful. In his daydreams, she always looked at him with a little surprise, a dawning affection, because he turned bathing from a chore into something that felt good.

He figured he was about one step away from grabbin’ up Harlequins or getting packed off to the loony bin. But a man’s fantasies were his own, and not a picture of it could be read out of his head, so it was safe enough.

He sat next to the motorcycle, changing the spark plugs while Rick rummaged through the cars they’d stolen from the group of rapists a couple of days ago. Siphoning gas, taking parts and belts they could reuse. It was honest work, kept the hands busy, but not the mind.

When Daryl had confessed he used to watch her, before he really knew her, she’d laughed. But then she’d gotten uncertain again, asking questions like she wasn’t really sure why he’d been watching her and not the other girls. And now, she was smiling all the time. The more he touched her, the more she smiled, and he couldn’t figure it. He fumbled it, half the time. Got nervous and did it too abrupt, or chickened out halfway through and pulled back.

But he couldn’t figure those smiles.

There weren’t no reason for them. With those men trying to kidnap her, the lack of food they’d had lately, the cold snap. There weren’t goddamn nothin’ to smile about. And he couldn’t see any reason why his touch would make her happy.

He also couldn’t see any reason she’d need to ask more questions, to be sure who he was watching.

But then, Carol wasn’t a tracker.

Tracks told all the stories. Glenn’s circling back to Maggie’s. Maggie’s, turning just partially away, then back again once she lured Glenn’s back her way. Lori’s, halfway to Rick’s before she changed her mind and made herself busy with another task. Rick’s, only a quarter of the way to Lori’s before he turned the other way. Hershel’s, around and around his daughters. T-dog’s, off to the pissing tree then back to the food stash when he thought no one was looking.

His and Carol’s tracks were harder to read than most. Coming off the motorcycle together at the end of the day. She always stumbled a little, when she first got off. He’d learned to catch her. Engine rumbled so loud, made your hands go numb, then your legs. He’d learned to trade off hands toward the end of the day, so both of his hands had full feeling in them when he caught her from that first stumble.

From there, they parted. Him to hunt, her to figure out how to make cans, spices and hope into dinner. They had spices for miles, and one pot still left to make stew, so that helped. Him and Carol’d come back together along with drips of blood from his game. His footsteps scuffing a few times because he got nervous when their conversation went longer than a couple o’ back and forths. Then he’d retreat to the edge of the woods, checking how things had been since he’d been gone, or setting up a perimeter wire, trying for the thousandth time to teach Rick to make a decent snare. His tracks would come close to Carol’s again when it came time to lay blankets.

Could have been innocent, their tracks.

Except for the way Carol’s toes turned in when she talked to him. The way she always kept him in sight whenever he was near camp. The way his bedroll was planted between her and the trees. Not next to her, not exactly. But not apart, neither.

He plugged the last spark plug into the motorcycle, kicking his heel against the damp grass, a little dizzy at not having another job to do.

No one had ever looked to him. His mother had looked to boxed wine. His father, to beer and waitresses. Merle, to the Marines and meth.

If men kidnapped Carol and he was tied to a tree while she was stabbin’ ‘em, what the hell did she need him for?

He risked a glance across camp at her, and she was already looking his way, even though she was chatting with Lori and Hershel. She smiled at him.

His fingers all curled in on themselves.

That smile. God, he wanted it. Just like his fantasy, of swimming with her and his hands rubbing over her body and her liking it. He’d gotten to do it, after all those months of wanting, when walkers attacked in the middle of her bath. But there had been blood between his palm and her breast as he checked for bites. Too goddamn scared out of his mind to even enjoy her beauty or worry over how thin she’d gotten.

And then he’d just about kicked his own ass when he realized how he’d been grabbing at her. It was a wonder the woman hadn’t crammed the knife he’d given her up into his own skull by now, grabby as he’d gotten with her after that attack.

Daryl put his tools away. Methodically, checking every one for cleanliness and placement, because if that motorcycle died in the wrong place, so would he.

When he was done, he wiped his hands on his red rag and walked into the woods, seeking solitude so he could think.

He weren’t stupid. Merle had told him he was, plenty of times. But there weren’t no arguing how he was the one who found the right creek when they was lost. How he followed the ruffle of leaves that led to venison jerky and the one Merle followed turned out to be the neighbor’s dog, Beavis.

Merle knew animals as well as Daryl did, but he had a tendency to see what he wanted to see instead of what was really there. Daryl knew better than to let hope warp his tracking, but he could only see one thing that all Carol’s signs added up to.

Now, he was left scrambling, trying to figure out how to not screw up the best thing he’d ever had going for him.

After those men attacked her, she looked to him. After Sophia got lost and the farm went down, she looked to him. He was pretty sure he’d have to run himself over with his own motorcycle if he let her down again, and that’d be a trick and a half considering the thing wouldn’t hold itself up.

What he needed was to do something romantic.

He’d ask Rick, but if Rick knew how to romance a woman, his wife wouldn’t have fucked his best friend, and she wouldn’t be sleeping with their son instead of her husband. He’d ask Glenn, but if Glenn knew how to romance a woman, his balls wouldn’t be in Maggie’s right pocket and she wouldn’t smile at him with that look of half-fond tolerance in her eyes.

He didn’t want Carol to look at him with tolerance. He wanted her to look at him like she did when he said they should find a swamp house on stilts to fortify. Or that they should coax out the walkers before going into a store. He could live for a couple hundred decades on the way she looked at him when he’d out-thought everybody in their tiny group.

Not that it was hard. Bunch of NASA scientists, these guys weren’t. He supposed he was lucky to come across a decent woman only after the end of the world when the competition weren’t so stiff.

All he had to do now was figure how not to screw it up.


	19. Touch Me

Carol examined the half-crumbled brick walls of the roofless ruin, trying to find the best place for a campfire. She could hear Maggie and Glenn making out on the other side of the wall, which was unfortunately the best fire placement. Those two were the loudest kissers she’d ever heard. A lot of saliva was being exchanged. Measurable volumes of saliva. They must like each other a lot to put up with that.

“Hey.” Daryl’s rumbly greeting came from just over her shoulder.

A smile lit her face. “Hunting must be good today. It’s still light out and you’re back.”

“Yup. Wanna help me skin some possums?” He held up three by their leathery tails.

“Do I ever!”

He looked suspicious.

She hooked a thumb over her shoulder, toward the sound of muted moans and smooching.

Daryl grunted. “Again?”

“Always.”

He walked over, kicked the wall, and hollered, “Walkers!”

Behind the wall, cursing and zipping ensued, as well as the racked slide of an automatic pistol. Carol stifled her laugh as she followed Daryl away into the forest.

“That was some very bad karma.”

“Bad what?”

“Nothing. Just…you know what they say about the man who cries walker.”

He snorted. “Nothin’. Just wait five minutes and one’ll wander in. Goddamn miracle Glenn hasn’t already gotten a chunk out of his ass, messin’ round with Maggie all over the woods, not payin’ attention.” He snuck a sidelong look at Carol. “Shot one for ‘em once.”

She gave a little wave to Lori by the trucks, so they’d notice where she went and not worry. “What do you mean?”

“When they’s fuckin’.”

Carol exploded out in laughter, clapping her hands over her mouth before she drew in walkers. “What?! Were you watching?”

“No! I was just huntin’, heard moaning and thought…well, I didn’t think it was people, that’s all. But after I saw ‘em, a walker was comin’ up so I shot it and then I took off. Had to go back and get my bolt after dark, which was a pain in the balls—ass, I mean.”

“I’m not really sure pain in the ass counts as cleaning up your language,” she said dryly. “But I appreciate the effort.”

“Quit.”

“Where the hell are the walkers?” Glenn complained from back in camp. “Dammit, Daryl!”

Daryl chuckled soundlessly. “Walk faster or he’s gonna come out here and whine at us real good.”

“Perish the thought. Glenn does a good whining when he puts his mind to it.”

He harumphed his agreement. “Last week I had ‘im going for a good forty minutes.”

“About the worms again?”

“Nah. Told him there was a special kind of chigger that jumps into your short and curlies if you take out your pecker in the woods. Had him pissing in the middle of the road for a week. Then Maggie went and tol’ him I was lying.” Daryl scratched the back of his head. “He was pretty mad.”

“Again, karma. Someday all your messing with Glenn is going to come back on you.”

“I done already had chiggers in my short and curlies. He oughta be thanking me for the tip.”

She burst out laughing at his blunt declaration. His face lightened and he slung an arm around her.

She stumbled a step and stole a glance at him. He kept his arm there but walked very carefully, all three possums dangling from his other hand. She wasn’t entirely sure he was breathing. She reached up and squeezed his hand, smiling so he’d know it was okay.

It was a little awkward walking over the rough terrain of the forest with his arm over her shoulder, but he kept it there even when it slipped and rubbed oddly. She tried to remember what they’d been talking about and couldn’t. Then she felt odd walking so passively at his side, so she put an arm around his waist, slipping it under his jacket. His waist was always slimmer than she expected, for such a solidly-built man.

He jerked, his abs contracting. She started to pull away and he clamped his arm harder around her shoulder, his fingers grinding against her joint for a second before he modulated his grip.

“ ’S all right,” he rumbled.

She settled her hand around him, letting it ride very lightly above the flex of his hip, her fingers safe behind the hilt of his knife. She almost laughed when she realized _she_ was holding her breath now.

“What?” he asked.

She must have made a sound, or let slip some little change of expression. He didn’t miss much, especially lately. She shook her head. They were like a couple of awkward, hormone-drunk teenagers, but if she said that, he’d blush and get all snappy and she didn’t want to go there. This was nice.

But of course, because this world was incapable of letting happiness last for long, they reached the stream a few steps later.

“Here?” she asked reluctantly.

“Yup.” He slung the game onto the ground and let her go. “You ever cleaned a possum afore?”

“No. You usually bring them back to camp cleaned out.” She glanced around. “So the blood won’t draw walkers, right?”

“Mm-hmm.” He pulled off one of the pieces of string he kept wound around his belt, made a slit around the possum’s back leg, and tied the string through it. She grabbed one of the other ones and did the same. Daryl didn’t usually talk when he was teaching her something, unless he had something to add that she couldn’t see by watching him.

She held her hand out for a piece of string and he untangled a second, a little bare slice of his stomach showing as he fumbled with his belt. Warmth spiraled through her belly and she looked away.

Daryl slung the strings over a branch and slit the throats of the possums, letting their blood drain out onto the leaves. She blinked and turned to stare at the stream, watching the clear water and trying to forget how the man’s throat had looked when she rammed her knife up under his jaw. How the blood had gushed out all hot and red with life. So unlike the black, congealed walker blood.

“Sorry,” Daryl said. “Didn’t think.”

She cleared her throat and reached for the third possum, slitting its hind leg. “It’s nothing.”

“Ain’t nothin’.”

She smiled faintly. “It’s nothing all of us haven’t had to learn to live with, how about that?” She used the back of her wrist to push little tickling strands of hair off her forehead and glanced up at him. “There’s better and worse moments, but I’m okay.”

“You keep sayin’.” He stood there, hands hanging at his sides like he wasn’t sure what to do with them.

“I keep saying because you keep hovering. String?”

He set to untangling a third piece of string off his belt.

“Can I ask you a question?” she said.

“Mm-hmm.”

She smiled. She liked the little sounds he made, how he had thirty different ways to rumble, and how clearly they all made sense to her. The way she could tell the footsteps of a fox from a possum now, without even looking into the trees. It was a language she’d just sort of settled into in her new life.

Daryl’s eyes warmed, looked hesitant but pleased. He passed her the string. “Smilin’ a lot.”

“Am I?”

He nodded. Kicked at the leaves. Pulled his crossbow off his back and checked the bolt, the string, slung it back over his shoulder. He coughed a little. “What’s the question?”

A little pang darkened her mood, but it took more than a conversation to scare her, these days. She held her hand out. It was streaked with possum blood, but so was his. He looked at it, looked at her. Slowly, he put his hand in hers. Even then, he checked her expression as he did it, like he thought it must be a trick.

“That,” she said. She held onto his hand for a long moment, then squeezed his blood-sticky fingers before she let them drop. “You hardly touched me, before those men tried to take me. I keep thinking about why _that_ changed things, and I didn’t like any of the answers I came up with.”

He shifted. “Seemed like…seemed like it cheered you up, that’s all. Don’t mean nothin’ by it. I’ll stop, if ya want me to.”

She squinted at him. She’d been thinking it was a testosterone thing, staking his territory. The way Ed had never put his arm around her unless he thought another man was looking her way. She exhaled a little unsteady laugh.

Daryl’s face twisted, and he scowled at the possums. “Stupid. Sorry. I ain’t good at cheering people up.”

“No, that’s not why I was laughing. Sometimes I still believe the worst in people.” She smiled. “It’s nice to be wrong.”

He flicked a glance at her.

“It did cheer me up,” she clarified. “I just wasn’t sure why you hadn’t done it before. Before those men, I mean.”

His mouth twitched and he started to cut open a possum. She stepped up next to him and started on the second, making sure her knife was clean from her last walker kill.

“Don’t cut deep,” he said. “Just the skin. You nick the guts, gets all nasty in there. Spoils the meat.”

She nodded and they slit open the animals. She grimaced a little as she reached in to pull out the guts, but the task seemed to relax Daryl, because his voice was easier when he said, “I ain’t good at all that. Touchin’s not what people do, where I’m from.” He reached over, pointed with the tip of his knife to show her where to cut to detach the intestines. “Maybe it’s ‘cause the world ended, or just ‘cause we got a lotta women, but our group’s always been all touchy. I ain’t never been a part of that, though. Don’t know how it all works.” He wiped his face with the sleeve of his jacket, frowned at the possum. “I mean, you cain’t lay hands on any girl that ain’t yours. But the guys round here, Shane and Rick, Dale and Glenn, they…they got all their own rules.” He grunted, sounding frustrated. “Merle and me, we weren’t never like that. Hugs and shit. He’d have knocked me on my ass for being a homo.”

“Well, Merle’s not here. And I don’t think anybody has any doubts about your sexuality.” She tried to slip her knife under the skin of the possum the way he did, but just ended up shredding it. She made a face, tried again. “I think you could be a part of it, if you wanted to. You always stand apart, like you’d take the hand off somebody that tried to get too close.”

His cheek twitched and he pulled the rest of the skin off the possum with one long rip. “I know I’s jumpy sometimes. Don’t mean to be.” He flicked the skin onto the ground, took a glance around for walkers. “Just…in my house, you knew when a punch was coming. But when my old man touched me and it wasn’t with his fist, that was when I knew the real bad shit was coming down.”

Carol’s eyes flared and she was very, very careful not to look over. She had the idea his upbringing had been rough, but she hadn’t known it went beyond hitting.

Daryl shook his head. “So sometimes, people go grabbing at me, feels bad. Real bad for a second.”

“Daryl, why…” She dropped her hand to her side, her face falling. “I must have been making you miserable, the last few weeks. Holding onto you the way I’ve been. Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me do that?”

He looked up, surprised. “Not you. Different, when it’s you.” He tried to smile. His cheek moved differently, so she could tell he was making the effort, his eyes flicking from the forest floor to her face and back again. “ ’S nice.”

She bit her lip, trying really hard not to tear up, not to make a big deal out of this. He was trusting her so much, talking to her this way. She nodded. “Okay.” She reached for him and stopped before she got his jacket sleeve bloody. His face went stiff and blank when she stopped, and she held up her red-streaked hand. “Sorry. I’m all possum-y.”

He chuffed out a laugh and she did, too, going back to her work. He moved around her to work on the third possum while she tried to catch up.

“Just so you know,” she said. “I wouldn’t have minded if you didn’t wait until I got kidnapped before you held my hand.”

“Didn’t think you’d want a guy like me pawing at you.” He slit the last possum open with one deft stroke, and dug his hand inside without a trace of hesitation. “Merle was always touching on women, just to see who’d let him and who’d slap his hands away.” He shook his head, chewed his lip. Shook his head again. “Didn’t sit right with me.”

“You’re not _Merle_.”

He finished the third possum, glanced at her, then took over skinning hers. “I know.”

“No,” she said. “Sometimes I don’t think you do. And more than that, nobody in the group thinks you are, either. It’s why they wanted you to stay.” She laughed. “I think Rick just about shed a tear when you pulled up on the motorcycle after the farm burned.”

Daryl whacked the legs off all three possums, leaving one leg on each and tying them all to the same string for easy carrying. “Yeah, ‘cause he cain’t hunt worth a shit. He was seeing a whole life o’ canned tomatoes passing before his eyes.”

She laughed. “He relies on you, yes. For more than hunting. And I think, after Shane, it meant a lot to him to have another man he could trust to back him up.” She walked down to the stream to wash up. “And I think, if you don’t want to be on the sidelines of the group, you don’t have to be.”

She pushed her hands into the frigid water, the clear liquid rippling around her wrists and carrying away the tinge of red.

Daryl squatted next to her and rinsed quickly, stealing sideways glances.

She winked. “Or maybe I’m just saying that to get my hands on your possums.” She turned, enjoying his quiet laugh as she went to pick up the possums.

They walked back to camp, quiet, like they were a lot of the time. The group came with so much chatter, she didn’t mind a break sometimes, and she knew he didn’t.

Rick was standing outside the busted down wall when they got back. “Nice haul, today,” he said, looking at the possums.

Daryl nodded, and as he passed, he slapped Rick on the shoulder. Then rebounded with a weak pat. Then latched on with too strong of a squeeze. Carol cringed, watching.

Rick’s mouth fell open and his brow furrowed. Daryl backed up, his shoulders tightening the way they did before he threw a punch.

Carol stepped between them with a bright smile. “You know, I’ve been meaning to ask, where’d you learn to work on motorcycles?”

Daryl glared. “Chop shop,” he spat out, still eyeing Rick warily.

“Really?” She frowned. “Doesn’t seem like that would teach you how to fix them. Did Merle run a chop shop?”

“My cousin had one. Learned to take everything apart. Figured out later, if you turn that ‘round backwards, that’s how everything goes together.” He glanced at Carol. “Got shit to do.”

He stalked off, but Rick caught him with a firm pat on his back as he went. “Thanks for dinner.”

Daryl’s steps hesitated for a second. He grunted, and then kept on going.

Carol allowed Rick a smile, because she might have punched him straight in the mouth if he’d have messed that up.

Then she looked after Daryl, her eyes following the wings on his vest. Her heart grew bigger and bigger inside her chest as she thought about the chop shop story. That’s exactly what he’d been doing in the months since Merle left. Taking everything his childhood had ever taught him, and turning it inside out to find the right way to live.

And just like everything Daryl set his mind to, he was doing it roughly, but very, very well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: I had to watch four videos of possum skinning on YouTube for this chapter. You’re welcome.
> 
> Up next, Daryl and Carol’s first “date”


	20. The Resilience of Stones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Big special surprise today! the_wd_caryl made a fan video for this fic! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xyLN3PzM1s
> 
> She put together scenes from the show that match the emotional arc of this fic, then edited a bunch of shots from the show together to make entirely new scenes that show the events of the attack in Chapter 14-17. So thanks to her incredible generosity and technical prowess you can sort of watch this fic onscreen with the real actors!
> 
> This is my favorite present of all time and I'm so flattered and just...overcome that anyone would like my little story so much to make a whole video for it!!!! And I'm going to try to stop gushing right now or I might cry. Everybody go watch her amazing video.

Trees waved in the wind, the few leaves left on them crackling and rattling together. The yard around the big house was lumpy with bodies that they’d left last time they’d been here, when walkers had attacked her down by the pond. Carol crossed her arms and leaned back against the wood siding, not turning her head when she felt the subtle shift in the air. It wasn’t that she’d learned to hear Daryl coming, necessarily. Lots of times, she felt his eyes on her before she ever heard a thing.

“I’m glad we came back here,” she said. “It must have been a nice place, once.”

“We’re going in fucking circles.” Daryl spit onto the ground. “Already cleaned out this kitchen.”

Claustrophobic panic nibbled at her. He was right. They kept hitting roads blocked off with fallen trees or wrecked cars, or clotted with herds of the dead. They’d never made it more than a day’s drive from the old quarry camp, and they had fewer and fewer roads left to try. Fewer and fewer cupboards they hadn’t already raided. She stared out at the gentle hill behind the house, trying to soothe herself with the open space.

Tonight, she didn’t want to think about survival. She wanted to believe there was still more than that left in this world.

“ ’S wrong?” Daryl swiped a stick off the ground, breaking little pieces off it as he leaned up against the siding. He was always doing that, fiddling with something when they talked. Usually a weapon, though maybe that was just a coincidence, considering weapons made up the majority of his possessions.

“Nothing.” She tore her eyes off his strong fingers. “Why?”

“Quiet today.”

She smirked, peeking up through her lashes. “We’ve been riding a motorcycle all day, Daryl. How would you hear it even if I decided to get chatty?”

The Triumph was ear-shatteringly loud. He’d given her his spare set of earplugs to wear, but the quiet still felt overwhelming at the end of every day when he turned off the engine. She’d been surprised at first that he wore earplugs, but not since he’d shown her how to decipher all the forest sounds. Daryl used his hearing like he used everything else: like a weapon.

He just looked at her, waiting for the real answer.

She exhaled, a little flutter kicking up her heart now that the moment was really here. “Will you come with me somewhere?”

He nodded easily. “Yup.” A second later, though, his hands paused on the stick. “Uh, just me?”

Now her whole chest felt like it was fluttering, her head getting light and spinny. “Just you.”

He gave her a piercing look, the same expression he got when he heard a sound at night he couldn’t decipher. When she didn’t take back her invitation, he nodded, more slowly this time. “Where?”

“Not far.”

She ducked back into the house to tell Rick where they were going. When she came back out, Daryl’s crossbow was riding his back and he matched her pace as they climbed the hill and dropped down to the pond.

His shoulders got stiffer the closer they got to the water, his eyes going straight to the place where he’d kicked a walker off her when she was half-naked and trying to bathe. They’d dragged the bodies off into the trees, but there were still a few rusty brown stains on the rocks. She kept going, walking straight through the dark places.

She stopped when she saw a spot where a stream fed into the pond. There, most of the rocks were tumbled smooth, washed down with years of running water. The sun hung unadorned in the sky today, and though it wasn’t exactly hot, Daryl had shrugged out of his coat and just wore his leather vest over one of his shirts with the sleeves ripped off.

The glance she stole at him collided with one of his. They didn’t always talk when they were together, but today the silence felt too laden with other meanings. She tried to ignore that, waiting for it to ease into their normal comfort as she picked through the rocks along the edge of the pond, choosing the flattest ones.

She sent one skimming out across the pond, hopping a good five skips before it sunk. Daryl let out a quick breath and she grinned at him. “Impressed?”

He snorted, grabbed up a rock of his own and hurled it. It smacked the surface of the water with a loud _plunk_ and sank. “Too round,” he muttered. She tossed him one of her flatter ones and he sent that one out, too, getting barely two skips before it sunk.

They took turns, the competition growing more earnest with every rock.

Six skips.

Zero.

Five skips.

Two.

Eight skips.

Three.

Nine skips.

Zero.

On the last one, Carol burst out laughing. “You’re terrible at this!”

He ducked his head. “Rocks’re too damn fat, ’s all.”

“I can’t believe I’ve found the one outdoorsy thing Daryl Dixon can’t do.” The tips of his ears grew red and she tossed a pebble at him, bouncing it off the round muscle of his shoulder. “What’ll you give me not to tell everyone else?”

He snorts. “That I ain’t no good at throwing rocks? The hell do I care? Rocks sink. Don’t make no difference if they do it sooner or later.”

She wound up, letting her hips swing with the throw and this time her rock skimmed so fast across the surface she couldn’t even count the skips. Her shoulders dropped under a huge sigh. “I used to do this when I was a kid. Back when my dad was still alive, before my mom remarried. Could do it for hours and I wouldn’t think about a thing. I can’t imagine doing that now. Whole hours without a single thought in my head.”

“Try this’n.” Daryl passed her a rock, a good smooth one. “When’d your dad die?”

“When I was eleven.”

“Young.”

“Not as young as you lost your mom.”

He shrugged.

Carol gazed out at the pond. After her dad died, her mother hadn’t ever been the same. Mom had been so starved for attention she married the first man she’d dated: her boss. That had been when Carol was thirteen, just starting to sprout the tiniest swell of breasts. Her throat suddenly felt tight, and the rock Daryl chose for her sank on its first skip.

Daryl had given up entirely on skipping rocks now, and he’d dropped to one knee as he sifted through the stones. The smooth ones he passed up to her, but the most vividly colored ones he set in a row in front of him. They looked like _something_ , like he was sorting them by type, maybe.

“Ain’t never skipped rocks as a kid. We only had the little crick out back o’ the house. Nothing even big enough to get a decent swim near there.”

His lines of colored rocks were growing, and she waited for him to find one he liked well enough to keep.

“Used to love rocks,” he muttered. “When I’s a kid.”

“Yeah?” She sent another one skimming along the mirrored surface of the pond. “What about them?”

“Can’t break ‘em.” His hands kept returning to a few of the brightest ones, picking them up, smoothing them with his thumb, putting them back down. “Toys al’ays got broke, somehow.”

“Merle?” She frowned out at the lake. Even as a grown man, he mostly seemed to go after things once he realized someone else wanted them.

“My old man, mosta the time.” Daryl flicked a lumpy gray stone into the water. “Get all drunk and start screamin’ that life takes everything away from ya, best get used to it.” He threw another rock into the pond. “Even ‘fore my mom burned up, he was like that. When he sobered up, he’d bring home more toys, from the dollar store or whatever, but…” Daryl shrugged. “Didn’t want to play with ‘em. Knew they’d just get broke.”

“Ed was like that.” She sat down, her arms resting loosely on top of her knees. “He was always sorry, after. In the early days, he’d cry all over me, promise he’d change. Later on, he’d just bring me these flowers.” She looked over at Daryl with a smile that was only a little sour, because it was almost funny, now. “Not even real roses. These fabric ones.”

Daryl’s eyebrows rose. “The ones they’s always selling in gas stations? Them dusty ones?”

“Yup.” She did laugh now. “They were probably dusty because nobody else’s husband was lazy enough to buy flowers at a gas station. I knew he only thought of them because they were right there when he stopped to buy cigarettes and a 40-ouncer on the way home. But I felt bad not liking them because, you know, at least he _thought_ of me.”

Stones crunched as Daryl’s foot started jittering up and down. “I used ta feel bad, too. When my old man’d come home with a new toy after he broke my old ones. Say, ‘Son, I bought something for ya!’” He made a sharp noise, shook his head.

Carol gritted her teeth until her jaw ached, but it wouldn’t help for her to curse at his father for being a bastard, even though he had been. Instead she shot Daryl a sideways look and a little smile. “At least they weren’t ‘genuine rose scented.’”

He huffed out a sound, the corner of his mouth kicking up. “Those thangs smelt like shit. Bought one for a girl once. Sneezed like thirty times after I tried ta smell it.”

Carol burst out laughing and smacked him lightly in the arm. “You didn’t! You bought a girl one of those awful things?”

“Never gave it to her.” He shot her a sheepish little glance and when she kept laughing, he tossed a pebble at her shoe. “Shut up.”

She shook her head, smiling down at the ground. It was all too easy to picture a young Daryl saving up his coins to buy one of those ninety-nine cent flowers, then being too uncertain to actually present it to the girl he admired.

The whole time they’d been by the pond, she’d been watching him lean a little closer to her, then jerk back away, mirroring the same little advance and retreat his eyes always did when she was around. He could look at Maggie straight on, or Andrea, but never her. If he had that fabric flower today, she imagined the petals would go dusty and rot away before he ever gave it to her. Not because he lacked the courage, but because he didn’t want to give the world something else of his to break.

It hadn’t escaped her that he still hadn’t put any of the stones in his pockets.

Carol picked up a deep red one with sharp edges. “Do you know what this one is?”

He took it, flipping it in his agile fingers. “Type o’ slate.” He pointed to one of the greens, nudging it closer to her. “This one’s jasper. Don’t find much o’ that round here.”

“How’d you know that?” She hugged her knees, watching him. “I mean, you don’t learn the names of rocks just from playing with them.”

“Library. Sometimes I’d hang out there after school ’til they closed, ’specially if Merle was off in juvy, or when my friends was riding bikes, ‘cause I didn’t have one, couldn’t keep up.” He flipped over one of the rocks, wet it to bring out the colors, and offered it to her to look at. “They had books with pictures of plants, rocks. Animals and trees. I figured out all their names. Woods was better after that. Made more sense.” He squinted over at her.

“Like a party. Seems more friendly when you know everyone’s name.” She smiled, playing with the stone he’d handed her. “I felt a little bit like that after you helped me figure out the forest sounds the other night.”

He looked pleased, his forehead smoothing. “Some o’ them books had stories in them, not just names and pictures. ‘Specially plants. They got lots of different names, stories to go with ‘em.”

“Like the Cherokee Rose.”

“Sure, that’s one of the best ones, but there’s others.” He plucked out another rock for her, scrubbed a bit of dirt off one side, passed it over. He’d relaxed from a kneeling position down to sitting with one knee cocked up, his crossbow resting comfortably against his back. “Never wanted to take them books home ‘cause my old man’d mess ‘em up, but I read ‘em enough times that I ‘membered pretty much all of ‘em. Even now.”

She bit the inside of her lip, something dark gathering in her chest at the idea that he couldn’t even trust a geology book to be safe at his house, but _he_ spent his entire childhood there. All those years when he was too small to defend himself. She couldn’t quite picture that in her mind, and it still made her want to reach for her knife to think about it. But it made sense. He still hadn’t put any of the rocks in his pocket, because he never brought home anything that meant anything to him.

“Is that why you never brought me home?” she said softly.

“What?” He looked up, confused.

“Nothing.” She laid her head on her knee, sideways so she could still watch him picking through the rocks.

Not that they had a home to go to, now. But it wouldn’t make a difference if they did, because he wouldn’t claim her as his. No matter how often his eyes sought her out, how they softened sometimes when he first saw her waiting after he got back from a hunt or a run or clearing a house.

She wasn’t a weapon, or a mode of transportation. She wasn’t anything to keep the group safe or warm or to prove his worth to their friends. With the world the way it was now, he might never feel safe enough to admit to wanting something that wasn’t strictly for survival.

Would it be wrong if she admitted that she did? To push him in that way?

Birds called back and forth in the trees, the wind shhhing across the water and kicking up little droplets to splatter on her stained shoes.

“ ’S quiet,” Daryl said, and something about the way he said it made it clear that this time, he was talking about the area, not her. It was funny, how she could pluck out the meanings from in between his words now. “Hasn’t been any walkers in an hour. Keeps up like this, might get to stay two nights.”

“That would be nice.”

He glanced at her, tossed a stone out to sink into the pond. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself.”

“Why’d you want me to come with ya?” He pulled his upper lip in between his teeth, bit at it twitchily as he waited for her answer.

“We’re always _doing_ something.” She waved a hand out at the pond. “Whenever we’re together, you’re teaching me something or I’m fixing or washing something for you. I wanted to just…hang out.” It sounded ridiculous when she explained it out loud. Like something a teenager would say.

A slow smirk took his mouth. “Ya wanted ta ‘hang out’?”

She tossed a pebble, let it bounce off his knee. “Don’t ruin it.”

“I’m not,” he said with a laugh behind his voice.

“You’re going to spoil it, aren’t you?”

He rolled to his feet, pulling her up to hers by the arm when she didn’t follow fast enough. “Why don’t you show me how to throw them rocks, since you’re gonna get all snooty about it?”

“I’m not snooty. You’re just throwing them too hard. You have to sort of flick them.” She took a step away and bent over to get a couple of good ones. When she stood up, she caught Daryl looking quickly in the other direction. She glanced out, checking for walkers, but when she didn’t see one, she dismissed it and handed him one of the stones. “You’re holding it wrong.” She turned the rock in his hand so the flat side mirrored that of the water. “You have to get the angle and timing just right, so they’re already going the same way as the water; parallel. So when they finally do touch, it’s just a little kiss. Not enough pressure to break anything, just enough to bounce the rock back up into the air.”

He was watching her, his eyes almost pretty in the full sunlight. “Rocks that float, huh?”

“Sure.” Goosebumps rippled beneath her coat. Something about the way he was looking at her…but she kept her tone light.

She couldn’t kiss him. Not yet. She’d meant to, planned to do it today. But it was too precarious. She couldn’t risk him. In a hundred different ways, she couldn’t risk him.

His lips moved, just a little. Softened into his subtle version of a smile. “Guess if anybody could make a rock float, it’d be you.”

Her brow wrinkled, trying to decide if he was making a joke at her expense, but she couldn’t quite grasp it. “What? Why?”

“Ya make crappy stuff better. Like that old RV on the highway ya fixed up for Sophia. Made it look like a real home.” He tossed the rock she’d given him in the air, caught it. “Made a decrepit old possum taste like prime rib, th’ other night.”

“That’s just spices and knowing how to use tinfoil to its best advantage.”

He tossed the rock in the air, caught it again, looked at her. And somehow it was like he’d said something that took away all her defenses to his compliment, without saying anything at all.

She swallowed against a dry mouth. “On three?”

He nodded, and their hands both shot out on three. Not the count after, like so many people she’d been out of synch with in her life. Their rocks crossed in midair and so when they went skimming across the water she couldn’t be sure which belonged to whom. But they skipped so long they almost did seem to float. When they finally sank, all the places they touched the water made little circles, expanding out into each other. The sun glinted off the converging trails.

Daryl’s shoulder brushed hers. Slowly, so she knew it had been deliberate this time.

She caught her breath, her knees freezing into place. Maybe she’d been wrong. Was he wanting it, too? Was it not too fast? What if he was just waiting for her to make a move?

“Oughta get back,” he said, rocks crunching as he shifted his weight back and forth. “Help Rick.”

Carol let out all her breath in a single flood. “Right. Of course. We’ve been gone for a while.”

She sent a glance at the lines of pretty rocks he’d collected, then ducked and snatched one up, narrowing her eyes at him as if daring him to protest. He cocked his head. But he didn’t argue.

They walked back from the pond slowly, like neither one of them wanted it to end. It was a warmer afternoon, the sun shining bright enough that Carol could let her hands swing free out of her pockets without her fingers aching from the cold. She walked a little closer to Daryl, glancing at his hand where it hung at his side. After the other day, could she just reach out and take his hand, or would he get all stiff and awkward and ruin the ease they’d built from their quiet moment on the pond? With Daryl, it was so hard to gauge when she needed to give him time and when he needed her to push him.

Lost in thought, Carol had veered close enough that his knuckles brushed hers. He took a step away, automatically giving her more space, then stole a glance at her.

The sound reached them at the same time: shouting, from back at the house where they’d left the group.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: I’m just plain old excited to see the reaction to the next chapter. It was one of those ideas my muse threw me out of left field, and I really would have loved to see it on the show. Reedus would have absolutely KILLED this scene.


	21. Defender of the Innocent

As they walked back from the pond, shouting broke through the soft chirps of birdsong. A hill still stood between them and the house where everyone else was staying, so they couldn’t see, only hear. Daryl lengthened out his strides, his head cocked to listen better. Carol’s hand went to her knife hilt, but she didn’t hear the moans of walkers. Every now and then, they hit a silent walker, but rarely. This sounded like maybe an argument, not a battle. When they came over the little hill, she saw Carl and Rick facing off behind the house.

“I can shoot five out of six cans off a fence, so why can’t I have a rifle yet?” Carl said. “You let Carol shoot a rifle when she could barely hit a walker tied to a tree.”

“Carol’s a grown-up.”

“How many walkers do I have to kill before I’m a grown-up?”

“It’s not about killing, Carl. That’s the entire—”

Carl made a grab and suddenly he was pointing his dad’s Colt Python straight up into his face.

Daryl jerked to a stop, his arm going out in his customary “Wait for me to check it out” motion, but Carol was too focused on what was happening, and she walked right into his hand.

“How much of a little kid can I be if I can take your gun away from you, huh?” Carl shook the big pistol. “When are you gonna admit I’m not a baby anymore? I can handle myself, Dad. Obviously, I can even handle myself against _you_.”

Rick raised his hands. “Okay, I can see that. Which rifle did you have in mind? The .30-06 or the—”

In mid-sentence, Rick slapped Carl’s sheriff’s hat down over his eyes. In the next motion the gun hit the ground and he had Carl down on his face in the dirt, his arm held behind his back as his father’s whole big body pinned him into place.

Carol was so focused she had no idea when Daryl had started running but suddenly he was right in the middle of it. His boot struck Rick full-force in the ribs and he went flying off his son, losing his grip on Carl’s arm.

Carol gasped, her hands jumping to her mouth.

Daryl jumped over the boy and landed between him and his father. “You a big man now?” he snarled. “Beating up on little kids to show ‘em who’s boss?”

Carol’s eyes widened. “Oh God,” she breathed, and then she started running, too.

Rick hauled himself back up onto his feet, shock sagging in every line of his bearded face.

“Come on, big man.” Daryl beckoned. “You wanna fucking fight? I’ll give ya one.”

“Daryl, I don’t—”

Daryl never hit with just his arms. He wound up with his whole body and powered his full weight and all that twitchy, endless energy into every punch. This one spun Rick around and dropped him right back to his knees, spit and maybe blood exploding from his mouth as his head flew to the side.

“Daryl!”

Carol dodged around Carl’s frozen form and did the only thing she knew would stop the fight. She threw her arms around Daryl and hugged him tight, her body directly between the two brawling men. Daryl shocked to a halt.

“Don’t, Rick, please don’t.” She managed to keep her tone calm but her muscles gave her away, flinching away from the hit she figured Rick would never be able to stop in time.

Daryl jerked, his body responding to the fear in hers, and she bit down hard on her lip.

But the impact never came and she knew Daryl wasn’t going to throw another punch, so she spun around and locked eyes with their leader.

“Rick,” she said in a low voice, and that’s all it took for him to get what had happened. His eyes flicked from Daryl to Carl, and she saw the awareness click into place. Rick rocked back onto the heels of his cowboy boots, his fists falling open at his sides.

“Daryl, I wasn’t going to hurt my son.” Rick’s voice was so raw, it cracked a little on the last word.

“Yeah, well you wasn’t ‘xactly givin’ him no hug, neither.” Daryl spat in the dirt.

Carol took a step to the side so she could keep an eye on both of them. He was zeroed in on Rick with that focus he only used on something he was about to kill. Sweat broke out all down her spine.

This could get them kicked out of the group. And if he attacked Rick again, it might go beyond fists before she could stop it.

The memory of Rick laying on top of Carl flashed vividly behind her eyes. Her throat throbbed with pain, picturing a different dark-haired little boy pinned to the ground, nobody to intervene for him.

Rick turned away from Daryl, trusting him with his back as he went to his son. Carl was back on his feet, his eyes terrified and wide as they darted between the two men. Just yesterday he’d spend two hours dogging Daryl’s footsteps, begging to learn how to make snares.

Rick knelt down. “Are you hurt?” he asked hoarsely.

Carl shook his head, fast.

“I haven’t given you a rifle, son, because guns are dangerous,” Rick explained, his tone steady and loud enough to carry over to Daryl. “Rifles have bigger bullets than pistols. Harder to heal from, if there’s an accident. Like the one when Otis shot you. They’re also longer, heavier. Easier to drop or trip over. I’ve been waiting for you to prove to me that you can be safe with the gun you have.” Rick held out his hand. “And I’m going to need it back, now.”

Carl dropped his eyes, scrubbed his toe in the dirt. “I wasn’t really going to shoot you, Dad.”

“Look at me.”

Daryl started pacing again at the demand in Rick’s voice, seething back and forth behind Carol like a barely caged animal. She didn’t try to touch him, but she was watching. She wasn’t breathing.

Carl peeked up, just barely.

“Don’t you _ever_ point a gun at somebody you don’t intend to kill,” Rick said.

His son blinked. “What about a bad guy? If you just needed to scare him away.”

Rick put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “If it’s a bad guy, and you aren’t willing to pull that trigger?” He paused. “They see it. In your eyes. And once they see it, that gun might as well be in their hands.”

Carol’s hands wound into fists. She’d held a knife on Ed once, to get him to stop. A stupid, ridiculous little paring knife that he’d slapped right out of her hands. She still had the scars. A long, straight slice down each buttock. Her reminder every time she sat down that she’d threatened her own husband. Rick was right. Bad guys always knew if you didn’t have the guts to follow through.

“Not only that, if you point your gun at one of us, because you’re trying to scare us or you just forget for a second, it can go off by accident. Like it did for Sergeant Phillips, remember? When you were six, and he shot himself in the hand at the station when he was trying to clear a jammed cartridge?”

“I remember,” Carl murmured.

Daryl wasn’t pacing anymore. Carol risked a covert glance at him and there were deep lines bracketed out from his eyes. He was chewing on the inside of his lip. It wasn’t something he’d probably seen before. A father just talking to his son. Not screaming or punishing. But being firm for the boy’s own safety, not his ego.

“Guns kill people, Carl. All it takes is one second. Your finger slips or you lose your temper, do something you didn’t mean to do…” Rick paused for a long, thoughtful second, holding his son’s gaze. “All we have left in this world is this little group of people. Your mom, Carol, Daryl, the others. Daryl was just about to break my ribs because he thought I was hurting you. Do you think I should give a gun to someone who might put _him_ in danger?”

“No,” Carl whispered.

Rick held out his hand. Carl pulled his silenced pistol out of the holster with a trembling hand and laid it in his dad’s palm, barrel faced away from the group.

Carol swallowed. Shane wouldn’t have understood why Daryl went off like he did. He would have made it about whose dick was bigger, who was in charge. He would have wanted to punish him for it. He wouldn’t have apologized in the only way Daryl really needed him to: by being kind to the child. By saying he was forgiven without the two men ever having to face off over it.

She checked over her shoulder and Daryl was easing back, like he wanted to make one of his fade-into-the-trees getaways before anyone noticed. But his eyes were caught on Carl and Rick and he didn’t seem able to look away.

Carl took off his sheriff’s hat and held it out. “Do you want the hat back, too?”

“No,” Rick said, and his voice had gone scratchy again. “You earned that, son. And you’re going to earn back the gun, too.” He squeezed Carl’s shoulder. “Now you go thank Daryl for looking out for you and then go see if your mom needs help with dinner.”

A wave of tingles flooded through Carol’s whole body and the numbness started to fade from her fingers. They weren’t going to be cast out, with no one to defend Daryl’s back against a world full of walkers but her own, inadequate self.

Carl trotted over and stared at the ground. “Thank you, Daryl.”

Daryl’s hands fumbled with the snap on his knife hilt, checked the rag in his back pocket. He managed a jerky little nod and a grunt, and Carl trotted off toward the house.

Carol squared her shoulders and looked to Rick. She’d grovel for the both of them, if that’s what he wanted to make this right.

He nodded to them, his lip already starting to swell, blood dripping slowly down his chin from where Daryl’s rough knuckles had broken the skin. “Lori was heating up water for tea, if anybody’s in the mood for that before dinner. Might be nice.”

And then he walked inside.

Carol could have hugged the man. Even with every stupid thing he’d ever done and that asinine “This is not a democracy” speech. God bless him, he’d understood, and treated Daryl with not just respect, but compassion.

She turned to Daryl with a tentative smile lighting her face, but he was already gone. Not even a track in the dirt to show he’d been there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Okay, what do you guys think? Would Norman Reedus not have played that scene incredibly?
> 
> Up next, we’ve got another deleted scene to explain why Daryl hasn’t made a move on Carol yet (since in his mind, the arm around the shoulders thing was platonic, though it was still a huge step forward in their relationship) and another little peek at his childhood, since that seems to be a crowd favorite around here.


	22. How to Want

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for in character homophobic language. Sorry that Merle is so…Merle-y.

**DELETED SCENE: How To Want**

Daryl was used to wanting things he couldn’t have.

He remembered the first thing he’d ever wanted. It was a backpack. Bright red, not sunfaded or dusty the way all his hand-me-downs from Merle always were. The zippers pulled clean and smooth and they closed all the way without jamming, and it had three pockets, not two. One was a tiny, hidden pocket inside the body of the backpack, where his schoolbooks would cover it. He could put things in there, secret things, and nobody would even know he had them.

That way, he could take his things with him to school and nothing could happen to them while he was gone. And nobody else would know he had them, but he’d know. Like that impossibly bright blue feather he’d gotten from a jay. It fluttered down to him just as the bird took off, a wisp so light it nearly defied gravity as it slipped and lounged through the air. He watched it all the way down, the blue of the sky looking tired and washed out behind it.

Merle always said feathers carried mites and he should stop being such a girl and go get the whole bird, not one useless feather. But Daryl didn’t care, and he’d never gotten mites from a feather. Probably because he never had the feathers that long before Merle broke them or stuck them all over his shirt, dancing around and squawking about how little Darlina wanted to grow up and be a stripper with a feathered bra.

The red backpack had belonged to Joel, who lived in the cabin next door, and Daryl wanted it so bad sometimes it filled up his whole head, from morning until nightfall. He couldn’t remember how Merle found out: if he’d told him or if Merle’d just caught him watching the backpack, bobbing proudly on Joel’s back when he got on and off the bus. Either way, Merle said red was for pussies and city boys and real men always went for camo, so you could slip through the forest and animals wouldn’t see you coming.

But then, the next week, he beat up Joel and took the backpack. Kicked it into Daryl’s room and said, “Here ya go, ya queer, if you like it so much.”

Of course, then it was dusty, from his boot, and the zippers didn’t pull as smoothly as they looked like they did when Joel had it. Worst of all, he couldn’t take it to school, because then Joel would tattle on him for stealing and everybody already thought the dirty Dixon brothers were a buncha thieves. So he kept it tucked under his bed and only took it out after dark, when he’d slip into the forest. Which was almost as good, until Merle found the tarnished silver star necklace in the “secret” pocket. It came from their mom’s dresser but the chain was broke and she was too drunk to notice it was gone anyhow. Still, having a girl necklace was queer enough that Merle gave him a good wailing for it even though Daryl had never intended to wear the thing. He just liked the shine of it.

So somehow, even after he got the backpack, he never really had it. And he never, never stopped wanting it.

That’s why the thing with Carol wasn’t no surprise.

It crept up on him slow, so that at first, he didn’t realize he wanted anything at all. He just thought it would be good if he could find Sophia. It weren’t like any of the other dumbasses in their group had a chance in hell, unless they just stumbled over her like a fallen log. There wasn’t nothing else to do at the farm, and he hated the way Hershel eyed them from up on the porch. All o’ them, squatting in the dirt of his yard like poor relations.

He didn’t know how the hell Rick could live with himself, begging to stay someplace he weren’t wanted. And he didn’t know how everyone else could hang around the farm, chopping carrots or cleaning guns, when they all had ears and could hear Carol trying to cry quietly in the bushes, where she wouldn’t bother anybody.

No, it was easier to be out in the woods. Feeling his legs strong underneath him, doing something he knew how to do. The woods were the one place he was never unwanted.

He didn’t do it for Carol to smile at him. And once she had, he never really expected her to do it again. And then, one day, he did.

He got used to her smiling at him, first thing in the morning when she asked, “Sleep okay?” Like it made one damn snip of difference to her how he’d spent the dark hours. He got to where, it tugged at something in him when she chose to lay her blankets down closer to him than the others. And that day, that one crazy fucked up day when the farm burned…he brought her back to the group, and when they left, she got back on the bike with him instead of into any of the cars.

She was the only person in his whole life that had chosen him, even for something as small as a ride on his bike.

After that, the desire in him grew. Small, just a little perk of interest at first, like it had been with the backpack. An awareness that he liked looking at her. That the way her face fit together was a little better than everyone else’s. The light in her eyes more interesting, those times when she smiled at him. He realized he wanted to keep looking.

But wanting something was a torment, like a backpack you could never afford. There was nobody to beat up to steal Carol from. And hell, he didn’t have a big brother to do it anymore, anyway.

He wanted Carol, and her wanting him back wasn’t even a possibility, so it was only a torment. One more deprivation he’d always have to bear, nothing new about it.

Daryl had always been poor. He had no idea how to _have_ anything. All he knew was how to want.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: We’re headed out of canon land, folks. Everything after this is either sexier or weirder than what’s on the show. Sometimes both. I’m having a great time, if you can’t tell. I hope you guys are having fun, too. In the next chapter, Daryl makes an actual move on Carol. Almost. Kinda. Anyway, it was enough to make me proud of him.


	23. Get a Room

**Chapter 21: Get a Room**

It was a storm that pushed them over the edge, in the end.

The rain turned to sleet, and before it turned to snow, the Hyundai skidded off the road. Daryl got in the truck, hooked a chain to the car, and dragged it back onto the road. T-dog siphoned gas from the car into the truck to keep it going when its tank ran low. Once the flakes started to fall, nobody wanted to camp out.

Daryl wouldn’t let her back on the bike. Just kept shaking his head and scowling until she got in with Glenn and Maggie and Lori. Once he wasn’t looking, she held her hands to the heater vents and shivered herself back warm again, feeling wretched for leaving him out there in it with no gloves. But it would take too much daylight to strap his bike down in the back of the truck and they needed the daylight to find a roof without walkers surrounding it.

They’d circled through this whole area a dozen times. They knew the whole nothing that was out there. When Daryl’s motorcycle disappeared off the road with nothing more than a raised hand for them to wait, she could have strangled him. Going out like that, into danger with no backup, no recourse for a popped tire at the wrong moment, was the rawest kind of insanity.

“Tell me about it,” Lori grumbled when she saw her expression. “Every time Rick plays hero, I want to play tire iron meets head. Men. They’re idiots. Noble idiots, but still.”

Carol would have laughed, if she could have torn her eyes off the windshield.

But he came back with chapped, wind-whipped cheeks and a face set in stone that somehow also managed to be smug when he waved for the whole convoy to follow him. Nobody got out to question the call. Engines fired and they all bumped onto a driveway she would have sworn wasn’t a road.

White snow was already starting to smooth out the texture of leaves and bones that lay beside the driveway. There were dead walkers out here. More than a few. Maybe whoever owned the driveway had made a bit of a stand.

When they stopped at a gate and Daryl wrestled the un-oiled, creaking iron out of the way, Carol smiled.

“Preppers,” Maggie murmured, her eyes following the line of the 6-strand-high barbed wire away into the trees. “You gotta love them.”

Carol thought of Ed and shrugged. “They have their uses.”

The house was less than she’d expected. All the money sunk into land and gates and fences. The main thing barely three rooms dug deep into the ground, the few windows bare slits above the level of the dirt. It took Daryl and Glenn about forty-five minutes to pick the front lock, because no one wanted to break a door, this far from the road. They couldn’t run the cars while they waited, because fuel was almost too low to even make a getaway from this place and all but one of their gas cans were empty. The metal of the car around them got cold before the end. So cold it stung her fingers and seeped into her boots.

She got out of the car to help them clear the house. She didn’t know why, except she was cold and needed to move. But it was worth it for the way Daryl looked at her.

Funny how a half-second look of pride from one man was enough to erase two decades of derision from another.

Turned out, it was a good day to get brave, because there wasn’t a single walker inside. Just blankets and thick walls and two bedrooms with a big kitchen/living room combo. Wherever the owner had made his stand, it wasn’t in here.

Daryl pounded on one of the bedroom doors with his fist, the noise enough to make all of them jump. “Takin’ this one,” he said. “Tired.”

It was enough. He’d done enough, asked for little enough, that not one of them would so much as complain if he wanted a room all to himself for the night. Even though they’d have to use the dining room table like a bunk bed to make enough room for everybody else to sleep out on the floor. But Carol’s heart flipped and flopped like he’d asked her to take her clothes off, no matter how many times she told herself that him claiming a room didn’t necessarily have a thing to do with her.

They ate dinner the way they usually did, all sprawled in a big group and passing cans around once Carol had spiced them the best she could. Carl had his head on his mom’s knee, half-asleep already, and Maggie leaned hard against Glenn. Rick stood propped against the wall next to the other bedroom, waving Lori off when she tried to pass a can to him, gesturing for her to take more.

Halfway through dinner, Daryl returned from outside with a whoosh of cold air, stomping snow off his boots after Maggie gave him a dirty look. Carol kept him in the corner of her eye, aware of his every movement in the room for so many reasons. The air between them was practically humming now. With the memory of her attackers. Whatever vengeance he’d taken to make Rick say, “Never do that in front of my kid.” With the plunk of smooth stones into pond water and secrets shared just between them.

With how his face had looked when he claimed a bedroom, his eyes nervous in a way she’d never seen him in a fight.

He stopped near Rick, just a few steps behind her. Close enough she could hear them even over the buzz of conversation in the room.

“Sorry about ya face,” Daryl muttered.

“Yeah, well, I’d rather you didn’t make a habit of it,” Rick said dryly, but with enough warmth to keep her from standing up to referee. She shifted the way she was sitting so she could watch them. “You punch like your big brother,” Rick said.

“That good or bad?” The floor creaked as Daryl shifted his weight.

“Well, my face doesn’t exactly think it’s a compliment.”

Carol ducked her head to hide her smile so no one else in the gossipy group would realize they were missing out on good eavesdropping.

“Listen.” Rick’s voice was low enough now even she almost couldn’t hear him. “If I ever lay a hand on my son in anger, I hope you’d hit me twice that hard.”

Carol took a bite of food so she wouldn’t look like she was listening, but couldn’t even swallow.

“There have been times where I haven’t been myself,” Rick said, “and things in this world being like they are… It helps to know someone else cares enough to look after my family.”

“Ain’t like I was trying to be his daddy.”

“I know.”

Daryl’s dirty boots scraped against the floor as he fidgeted, and then he said roughly, “I’d keep ‘em safe. Something happened. Wouldn’t leave ‘em.”

“I know.” Rick reached out and squeezed his shoulder, holding the other man’s eyes despite the bruise that swelled Rick’s whole cheek down into his mouth.

Carol busied herself with her can of food, emotion squeezing through her until she couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t have to excuse herself out into the snow just to hide everything the exchange between the two men made her feel.

Shane never would have looked out for Daryl that way. Wouldn’t have even known what it would mean to the man to be trusted with someone else’s family.

Carol finally swallowed, looking at the group around her. They’d nearly scattered that first night after the farm burned, afraid and so uncertain. Even Rick had been barely hanging on by a thread. But his thread had been enough to keep them all together. And they were all still alive, every one. These days, it was nearly a miracle.

Daryl crossed the room to get his share of food from Lori. Carol peeked behind her and caught Rick’s gaze. She smiled at him. She should do more than that. Tell him she appreciated everything he’d done for them, the sacrifices he’d made, the weight he’d taken on. But not tonight, when they were all crammed in like they were living in a subway car.

They might be here a while, if the storm didn’t break. Walkers got slower in the cold, and the snow and wind muffled sound so they didn’t group up like normal. Hopefully that would be enough to keep them from accumulating here until the weather changed. Then again, snowstorms never lasted long in Georgia. They probably wouldn’t get much of a respite.

Carol’s eyes settled on Daryl, his shoulders hunched below leather as he wolfed down his dinner, standing by the fireplace. The smoke would dissipate in the snow as well, which would keep them hidden from humans and walkers alike. It was a real treat, finding this place. Enough to make her wonder if this was the moment she’d been waiting for since she took him to skip rocks. If she was brave enough to open herself up to whatever reaction he might have if she asked for more.

Daryl was volatile on his best days, explosive on his worst. Most likely he’d shove her away, say something hurtful, and she wouldn’t know his real answer for two or three excruciating days until he calmed down.

She rubbed absently at the center of her chest. It would be up to her to stay steady for him, to be his calm in the storm of his own emotions that he’d never learned how to handle. But she’d felt nothing but rejection from men from so long. And why would he be interested in her? Old as she was, just a knife and a couple of shooting lessons away from being a burden. Maggie and Beth were both prettier, Lori more feminine in so many ways.

But then, he’d claimed that private room tonight. Because he needed space from the group? Or was it something else? Something, maybe, to do with her?

For the rest of the evening, she could hardly breathe, much less make conversation. She kept her eyes on the floor as her thoughts whirled crazily, all the way until it was time to go to bed.

He would want to be alone, she decided. She wouldn’t push, wouldn’t even think of trying to join him, even though she never got any sleep when he wasn’t nearby.

But when he went to his room that night, he glanced at her first. Ticked his chin up a quarter of an inch. Any more was hanging it out there too much, in front of a whole houseful of people who knew their every secret and would be with them until the day they died.

And she followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: 
> 
> Next chapter, I’ve got a little bit I’m excited about sharing, my personal headcanon for how Carol and Daryl spent that wine-fueled night at the CDC.


	24. That First Night

Carol slipped into Daryl’s room while the living room was in noisy chaos, everybody trying to find their spot and get their blankets situated at once. Her heart was in her throat, but as soon as she saw a pillow and his dirty blanket on the floor, not the bed, something in her wilted.

He had his back to a wall, standing with his hands curling and uncurling at his sides. “I kin go,” he said immediately. “Sleep out there.” He nodded toward the living room. “Got the room cause I thought ya could use a little space for yourself.”

 _Steady_ , she told herself, and fought the urge to pull her coat farther closed over the disappointing lines of her body.

“Is that what you want?” she asked. “To sleep out there?”

He flicked a look at her, at the floor. The second time he looked to her, it lingered. On her throat, then her mouth. Fell to her hands.

A thousand memories superimposed themselves in the room between them.

_A shy hand, reaching just around the corner to set down a beer bottle with a white flower poking out of the top._

_His arm across her chest, catching her outside Hershel’s barn. Falling with her, all the way to the ground._

_The rumble of his motorcycle, carrying her to safety._

_His cold feet on her belly, the fear and frustration in his eyes because he couldn’t keep everyone fed._

_His hands, scared and cold as they shoved blood off her skin, checking for wounds._

An ache started in her chest. She let her coat fall open, and then she shrugged it onto the floor. Like Lori said, they were something. And whatever it was, it felt like the strongest thing she had to hold onto in this world.

And right now, with his eyes clinging to her, it was impossible to feel ugly.

Carol crossed the room, stopped right in front of him. It was two steps closer than he usually let anybody before he started to edge away. But tonight, he didn’t move. She lifted her hands and slipped them beneath his vest, moving slowly.

He wore a dark, long-sleeved shirt, the fabric thin enough that it was as warm as his bare chest would have been under her palms. She looked up, but the single candle in the room didn’t allow her to read his face.

Carol was suddenly aware that the living room had quieted down. Enough that she could hear the squeak of the floor when somebody rolled over. And Carl’s voice when he whispered, “Mom, why did Carol go in Daryl’s room? Isn’t he going to be mad?”

The spurt of a giggle exploded in the other room—Beth or maybe Maggie, but it was quickly muffled.

“Go to sleep, Carl.” Rick’s stern voice.

Carol bit her lip to keep from laughing, and she met Daryl’s eyes to share the joke. His face spasmed and he pushed away from her. She caught his vest, her fingers tangling with the laces on the sides as she pulled him to a stop. She lifted a finger across her lips and leaned forward to whisper, “Don’t you dare say anything. I want them to think I’m doing dirty, gymnastic things in here with you.”

His eyes widened. “Why?”

It was the astonishment in his voice that clued her in. He thought she was laughing at _him_. At the idea that they were in here together, in a romantic sense. All the laughter in her dried up in an instant and she remembered how plain she felt when she first entered the room. They were so alike, her and Daryl. They both needed to learn to stop expecting the worst.

She turned him back toward her, the candlelight flickering on the walls. “It’d only happen after the end of the world, right? An old frumpy lady like me, whose social event of the week used to be bringing cookies to the church social, in here hooking up with the most eligible bachelor in the group.”

He looked confused for a second, then seemed to realize she _had_ to be talking about him. But the first thing he said was, “You ain’t old.” He frowned. “Or…whatever that other thing was.”

“I sure feel it sometimes. But regardless, let the group talk. They need something to gossip about.” To distract him, she reached up and slid a hand through his hair, running her nails across his scalp. His head immediately drooped forward, giving her free access. “That feel good?”

He grunted one of his affirmative murmurs. She let her thumb stroke across the top of his ear on her next combing pass through his hair. His chin drifted a little closer.

“I’m exhausted,” she breathed. “If I lay us down on this bed, are you gonna get all stiff and snappy, or are you going to relax and let me keep playing with your hair?”

His eyes came open again. “Don’t mean to.”

“I know you don’t.” Her voice came out a little hoarse. “And I know why. I just…keep waiting on you to trust me.”

He caught her hand in one of his hunter-quick movements, holding it hard against his chest. His jaw worked as he chewed on his lip, staring down at their feet.

Carol was getting just as good at understanding his silences as his grunts. And this one felt like it might be breaking her heart.

His apologies always did.

She backed toward the bed. He loosened his grip a little, but still let her tug him along. They sat down next to each other to take off their boots, and then lay down, both of them automatically settling with her on the right, him on the left, because it was the way they always laid around the fire. She had to shift around a little, because the rock she always carried in her pocket—one of the pretty ones Daryl picked out but wouldn’t keep for himself—was digging into her hip.

He curled onto his side with his head ducked down at about the level of her chin. It took her a second to realize he was positioning himself so she could run her nails through his hair again. She did, a smile warming her lips when she saw a little shiver wind down his back when she touched him.

He edged a little closer, his knee brushing hers. Carol wet her lips, her pulse picking up. His hand touched her ribs, just barely, then settled into the curve of her waist. Not her ass, or even her hip, but her _waist._ There was something so innocent in that gesture, but at the same time it felt more intimate than sex ever had, in her former life.

The candle burned low, flickering deep gold shadows onto the wall behind Daryl. She played with his hair quietly, needing to sleep. Not wanting to.

“D’you remember that night at the CDC?” Daryl said, long after she figured everyone else had passed out.

“Yeah?” The moment raced back into her head and her breath caught. So much had happened since then, she’d forgotten: this wasn’t actually the first time she’d held Daryl all night.

“Did we do something? Or did I try something…” When she didn’t pick up the sentence he dangled, he exhaled sharply. “I’m a dick, sometimes, when I drink. Yell, break stuff.”

She craned her head a little, trying to see his downturned face. “I guess I’m not surprised you don’t remember.”

“I’s shitfaced drunk that night.”

And he’d probably been feeling guilty ever since about whatever he thought he’d done to her. But of course he’d never say a word.

“You were asleep,” she said softly. “When I found you in the game room. Passed out right on the floor.” She paused for a long moment. She wanted to set his mind at ease, but she really didn’t think he’d be any more comfortable hearing what had actually happened.

“What’d I do?”

“It really doesn’t matter, Daryl. It was a long time ago.” Only months, really, but it felt like a decade.

He pushed up on an elbow and stared at her. “How bad?” he growled.

She sighed. “You were crying. Dead asleep. Lying on your back so the tears were running into your ears.” She traced the path with the back of one bent finger, her knuckle stroking the skin from the corner of his eye back to his ear. “You said your brother’s name, once.”

He picked at the sheets, stole a look up at her through his sparse lashes. “I didn’t try nothin’?”

She wanted to laugh, but held it in because she knew he’d take it the wrong way. Truth was, if he’d have tried something back then, she wasn’t sure who would have been more shocked: her or him. But then, if he had and she’d been sticking close to him in the weeks afterward, would Sophia still have died? When the walkers attacked on the freeway, Daryl saved T-dog by hiding him under a walker’s body. If she and Sophia had done that instead of hiding under cars with Rick and Lori, the walker never would have found Sophia.

Carol pushed away the thought. She knew the endless pain to be found in what-ifs.

“You didn’t try anything,” she murmured to Daryl. “I just couldn’t watch you cry. I sat down and put your head in my lap.” She smiled at him, even though he wasn’t quite looking at her. “I was half afraid you’d wake up and yell at me, but I did it anyway. As soon as I did, you curled up into a ball on your side, the way you do when you sleep—not that I knew that, then. Buried your face in my belly and hugged your arms around my waist. Stayed like that all the way until morning.”

Sophia had been in the room right across the hall, so Carol would have heard her if she called out. She was glad it hadn’t been an issue because she wasn’t sure Daryl would have let her up, and he’d been so drunk she didn’t think she could have woken him.

“To be honest,” she said, “I always thought you were mad at me for touching you when you were asleep, because you took off so fast when you woke up. Wouldn’t even look at me for days after that.”

He grunted. His fingers stopped plucking at the sheets and moved across the space between them, one finger curling into her belt loop and tugging a little.

“Thought I tried something. When I’s drunk. Then passed out on top o’ you, maybe, ‘fore you could get away.” He gave the barest hint of a smile. “Was waiting for weeks for you to yell at me.”

She brushed his hair away from his face. “Did you _want_ to try something? Back then?”

The smile grew a little. Became sheepish. “Maybe.”

She tugged on his arm, drawing him up until he rested his head on her shoulder, his cheek cushioned on her breast. He was so still he was barely breathing, even after she arranged the blankets around both of them. “Can I tell you a secret?”

He made a little assenting murmur, the rumble of it tickling goosebumps from her skin beneath her clothes.

“I wish you would have,” she whispered, and wove her fingers together with his, laid their hands down together atop her ribs. “We both would have been better for it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Next chapter, the next morning when they wake up together. Because that’s not going to be awkward or anything.


	25. Snow Animals

It was different, waking up on the run.

You had to download a whole new reality into your brain, every day. What had happened the day before. Who you lost. How safe the night’s hideout was. When the last time was that you’d eaten. How soon you could find water. Food. Gas. Bullets. Blankets. Coats. Who was mad at you, and why. Who was okay with you, and how that might help ease the day ahead.

Today, Carol woke up with Daryl. Not next to her, but on top of her. He was sprawled with more relaxation than she’d ever seen from him, his face burrowed against her breasts and his feet splayed carelessly. She wrapped her arms over his hard, leather-clad shoulders and whispered, “Don’t you even think about running off or I’ll kick your redneck ass.”

He made a little, rough sound and lifted his head. His hair was thrashed and his blue eyes hazy with sleep. When he saw her, he leaned a little forward. A little more. He ducked his head, his nose nudging hers, and she didn’t dare move. His eyelashes tickled her brows when he blinked, and then his lips touched hers.

Carol closed her eyes, all the breath fluttering out of her. In this moment, she couldn’t even remember when her first kiss had been, but it felt like this was it.

Daryl kissed sweet. Needy somehow, and ticklish, with the scruff of his untrimmed whiskers against her chin. But uncertain, softer than she’d thought he’d be. She slid her fingers up the nape of his neck, into his hair, and he made a small sound in his chest that sounded good to her.

The fly of his pants raked over her hip and behind it, he was iron hard. Carol wriggled a little, pressing up against him, and their lips parted as he lost his breath. He came back to her, more urgently this time, his hand coming up alongside her face.

Carol let her hand sneak inside his vest, under his shirt. The feel of his hard, hot stomach made her head spin a little. Her thumb slipped beneath the button of his pants before she really planned it, and his abs contracted under her touch.

He ran a hand over her ribs, kissing her harder, and his shaggy hair tickled her forehead as he moved more on top of her, his touch teasing the edges of her breasts now. Moving by centimeters, not inches. She arched into him, telling him every way she could that this was okay, more than okay with her.

A low growl rattled deep in his chest, and then his tongue touched her lips. Tracing them, then stealing inside when she let him. He was rough like this, a little clumsy and hard, but in a way that made all her inner muscles clench. She liked that he wasn’t entirely in control.

A throat cleared, and a second later, the door rattled under a knock. Daryl pulled away, panting, and the shift in position pressed his erection into her leg. She grabbed his ass in a sudden burst of confidence, holding him against her. He made a choked sound.

“Daryl?” Rick called through the door. “You still in there?”

“What.” The grunt was mean enough a couple of months ago, it would have made her flinch. Now, she grinned and pressed a kiss to the corner of his scowling mouth.

“It snowed,” Rick said. “There’s some walkers wandering around. We need to decide what we’re going to do.”

“Kill ‘em!” Daryl burst out, then dropped his head to Carol’s neck. She pressed her lips together to hold in her giggles. “Fuck’s sake, Sheriff, ain’t rocket science. What else you gonna do with walkers, hang ‘em on the wall like a cross stitch kitty cat?”

Carol lost the battle against laughter, grabbing the pillow and hauling it over her face, smothering Daryl in the process as she choked and gasped and giggled.

“Uh-huh,” Rick said, managing to make even those two syllables sound dry. “Well, if you’re too busy, I’ll just be out here. Entertaining the _children_ in this very small house _._ Waiting on you.”

Daryl fought his way out of the pillow. “Comin’. Shit’s sake, _Grimes_.” He stuck a foot down onto the ground, stumbling a little as he tried to detangle from the blankets. Carol stole her chance and let her hand drag across the very noticeable tent in the front of his pants as he stood up. He reeled, caught his balance, and stared. “You do that on purpose?”

She flushed, grinned, and grabbed at his vest, pulling him back toward the bed. He uttered one, maybe two more swear words before she stole an off-center kiss.

“Shit,” he mumbled when he stood back up, jerking at his clothes like they were any more mussed than usual.

“That your idea of romance?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “How about one that isn’t expressed in four letters?”

His ears flushed red.

She winked. “Just kidding. I like your idea of romance.”

#

“The hell is that?”

Carol’s head came up immediately when she heard Daryl’s question from outside the house. She left the water boiling on the propane stove and moved to the windows. The house they’d found to wait out the storm was dug down into the ground, so the windows looked out just above the dirt.

She spotted Daryl’s boots outside the window above the sink, his toes pointed right at where Carl had been playing in the snow. She relaxed when she saw Carl crouching on the ground, his gloved hands all snowy, but clearly unhurt.

“It’s ‘posed to be a snowman, but the snow won’t stick together.”

“Ain’t enough snow to make a decent snowball.”

Carl sighed. “I know. It sucks.”

“When Merle and me was kids, we used to make mud animals. Weren’t hardly ever any snow, but there’s good red clay. Stick it in the sun and it’ll dry hard as anything.”

“Like what’d you make?” Carl sat back on his heels. “Snowmen are made out of balls, so how do you make animals instead?”

Daryl sat down in the snow right outside the glass and she laughed. The man was just like a kid, the way he never thought about what might make his clothes wet or dirty. He pulled a bolt out of his quiver and dug up some snow, mixed it with frozen dirt so it stuck together better, and started to sculpt.

Carol leaned a hip against the sink, strangely transfixed by the way his hands moved. They were so quick, like they always knew exactly the right motions to make. He compacted the snow, squeezing hard as if he didn’t feel the biting cold of it. She shivered just watching him.

When he was done, he dug around until he found a stick, then snapped off two tiny pieces and implanted them in the face of the animal he’d made. Then he used a thumbnail to delineate a neck, a fin at the end of the tail. It was long, like a seal, but with tusks…a walrus! Carol grinned. A snow walrus.

Where would Daryl ever have seen a walrus? She got the idea he hadn’t been much past his hometown. Maybe in those library books, he’d gone past what he could find in the forests of home and ventured out into pictures of the world beyond that he had no way to get to.

“It’s done?” Carl asked when Daryl set it back on the ground. “What’s it supposed to be?”

“It’s a walrus, dumbass. What the hell else got a tail and tusks?”

“It looks like a turd with fangs.”

Daryl snorted, but he didn’t sound particularly offended. He shifted, leaning back against the wall next to Carol’s window.

“You still have any of the animals?” Carl asked. “I mean, not now, but before the turn? Did you save any that you and Merle made?”

“Nah. Got broke.”

Carol grimaced, a black taste in her mouth like she’d been licking soot. She wished she could get her hands on Daryl’s father. She’d see how he liked to have his things broken. His legs, for starters.

“Weren’t like they was art or nothin’. Probly mostly looked like turds with fangs.” Daryl’s fist flashed down and smashed the walrus, the two sticks exploding off the snow animal’s face, one of them pinging off the glass of the window. Carol winced, sadness tugging at the lines of her face.

Carl used Daryl’s bolt to dig up frozen dirt to mix with some snow. Carol tensed, waiting for him to yell at the boy for putting so much stress on one of his few remaining aluminum shafts, but Daryl just pulled out his knife and started toying with it instead. She couldn’t see his face but she bet from his posture that he was watching the horizon for walkers. The storm seemed to have confused them, maybe broken up the herds. They’d only killed two walkers since they’d gotten here last night.

Carl made a pleased sound, sculpting faster now that his snow was sticking together. She couldn’t tell what he was making, but it looked fish-like.

“Daryl?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Are you mad at Andrea? For shooting you?”

Carol had gone back to the stove to check the water, which still wasn’t boiling, but she hurried back to the window when she heard that question. Why would Carl ask about Andrea now, when they hadn’t seen her in months? Carol hugged her arms over her chest, squeezing hard to suppress the flare of guilt.

“Nope.”

“Why not?” Carl said. “She was your friend and she shot you in the _head_.”

“Thought I was a walker. She did good, protecting the group like that. Hell, if I’d’a seen me, I’d’a thought I’s a walker, too.”

Carl scratched at his snow fish, slowly adding gills. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Why’d you care what Andrea thinks?”

“Because everybody at the farm said Otis was so nice, but like, why didn’t he look around before he shot at that deer? How great could he be if he didn’t even look to be sure he wasn’t shooting a kid by accident?”

“Ya don’t see what ya don’t see.”

“I guess.” Carl got a stick and started drawing scales onto his snowfish.

Daryl poked his knife into the snow, twirled it, pulled it out again. Used it to snip a loose thread off his pant cuff. She couldn’t tell if he was being patient for the boy, or if he was just keeping watch like usual. Either way, she couldn’t stop watching, and eventually, Carl spoke up.

“I just get so mad. When I think about Otis shooting me, and Dad killing Shane. And everybody says Dad _had_ to kill Shane and Otis didn’t _mean_ to shoot me, but still…I don’t know.” He poked his stick through his snow fish, then twisted it viciously so the hole in the fish gaped bigger. Carol bit her lip, something in her uneasy at the turn in his method of play. “I mean, why’s the world have to be so stupid? Why’s everybody have to be dead? Why can’t we have a house again?”

Daryl’s knife was plunged deep in the snow, his hand resting on the hilt.

“My old man used to get mad,” he said. “‘Bout pretty well everything. His boss, our crappy cabin. Me. Merle. My mama, before she burned the cabin all up. Whatever stupid thing there was, he’d get mad about it over and over and over again. Never changed nothin’. He was just an asshole, mosta the time.” He dried his knife on his pants and stuck it back into its sheath. Stood up. “You can be mad, if you want. Ain’t nobody gonna stop ya. But it makes ya an asshole.”

Carol sucked in a breath, not sure if she should intervene, or at least tell Daryl to watch his mouth in front of the kids. But then his boots moved off.

Carl stayed, sitting just in front of the window. After a minute, he picked up a little snow and filled up the hole in his snowfish, smoothed over the patch. And then he started to draw new scales across the top.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Oh Daryl, how I love your redneck parenting.  
> 
> 
> Funny story about this: when I got the idea for this scene, I could “see” the whole thing through Carol’s eyes but from this weird vantage point—way down low so I could only see their feet and the snow animals on the ground. Then I realized I’d written an earlier chapter all out of order, where they were staying in a building that was dug into the ground so the windows looked out at ground level. And that’s how I knew where the snow animals scene took place. Isn’t that a weird, magical, backwards way for a muse to work?
> 
> Does anybody else feel like we need another night in the snowed-in house where Carol and Daryl have a private room? Because I think we do. Let it snow, let it snow…(even in Georgia…)


	26. 10/10

Carol was trying not to laugh. Daryl was making it very difficult.

He had been fine all day, playing in the snow with Carl and then helping Rick give him a shooting lesson now that Carl had earned his pistol back. But as soon as it got dark, he got twitchy. Coming back into the house and going out again on made up errands. In between, he kept stealing glances at her, after which he’d scowl and snap at someone, about really anything. He’d gone out for water twice, snares four times. To check out strange noises twice and even _she_ could tell the second had been a squirrel chittering. Not a single walker, though she bet Daryl was hoping for one by now.

“Gotta adjust the snares,” he grunted as he picked up his crossbow. Checked the bolt, checked the string, slung it on his back.

Carl and Beth’s hands slapped together as something passed from one to the other. Lori’s lips twitched like she was hiding a smile and she bent a little closer over one of Carl’s hoodies she was ruining with her attempts at mending.

“Make sure they’re nice and tight,” Maggie drawled blandly.

Daryl’s head jerked her direction. Carol was pretty sure if it had been Merle, Daryl would have snapped back but he had no idea how to respond to a dirty joke coming from a girl. She bit the inside of her lip and reminded herself if she laughed right now, he’d probably sleep on the roof. Of a house several miles away.

Her laughter dried up immediately.

Beth leaned over to whisper to Carl and Carol caught the words _get water next_.

And of course Daryl’s super hearing caught it, too, because his shoulders tensed with embarrassment, and dammit, enough was enough.

Carol cleared her throat, then raised her voice so everyone could hear. “All right, let’s all talk about me and Daryl sharing a room tonight.”

Hershel and Rick looked up from where they’d been arguing over a map in the corner. On the couch, Glenn lifted his head from his girlfriend’s shoulder. Maggie grinned, and Beth’s eyes went wide, like she wasn’t sure how to handle this development.

Daryl looked horrified.

“I mean, you’re all clearly highly interested so let’s just talk it on over.” She crossed her arms, arched her eyebrows, and waited.

“Personally I want a performance rating on a 1-10 scale,” Maggie jumped right in, not a bit intimidated by Carol’s bluff. “But since you’re apparently going back for seconds, it must have been five or higher.” She sat forward. “Seriously though, sometimes the shy ones, they start slow, but _wow_ they’re trainable.”

“Margaret, that is inappropriate,” Hershel said.

“Sorry, Daddy, but there isn’t any private space around here to girl talk in. You can feel free to go check the snares with Daryl another ten or twelve times though. Surely we’ll have caught a Bigfoot soon.”

“Why don’t y’all mind your own damn business?” Daryl growled. “How ‘bout that?”

Beth smiled at him, no more intimidated than her sister. “We don’t have TV anymore. You guys are like our own little romance novel. Like…” She faltered a little. “I don’t know, like proof that life can be good again, even though we don’t have the farm, or a house, or…”

Daryl hesitated, like he wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

“We’re just glad you two are happy,” Lori said quietly.

“Yeah, man.” T-dog nodded, giving Daryl a square look without a hint of teasing in it.

Daryl glanced at Carol, his fingers jerking at his crossbow strap, and she thought it was just nigh a miracle he hadn’t shot anybody yet. Embarrassment still flushed darkly up his neck, but she thought maybe he seemed a little proud, too. Tentative, like he wasn’t sure if it was okay to feel that way, but proud. She smiled at him, forgetting for a second that they weren’t alone. So many things had been shared between them in that bed last night.

“That’s looking like an eight, edging toward a nine,” Maggie said. “Strong work, Dixon.”

He made a disgusted sound, scowling at her so vigorously that Glenn frowned. “Hey, dude, she’s just kidding around. Chill.”

“Why don’t y’all just let Daryl alone?” Rick drawled. “You’ve had your fun.”

Daryl nodded several times, glaring at everyone.

A smile snuck onto Rick’s face. “Besides, he’s going to need his energy for later.”

“Man, why’n’t you shut your fucking mouth and worry about your own damn woman?” Daryl burst out. “I wouldn’t need to save no energy if I hadn’t spent all mine fixin’ your shitty snares. Lucky if you could catch anything more’n a case o’ frostbite, setting ‘em like that.”

Rick pulled on his boots and slung on his coat. “Why don’t you quit expanding my kid’s vocabulary and show me how to do it the right way, then?”

Carol hid her smirk behind a hand as she pretended to scratch her nose. Rick was starting to do what she always did, drawing Daryl off from the group when he was about to explode so he could blow off some steam in private and come back calmer. It was nice; that these days she wasn’t the only one who cared enough to help soothe the prickly redneck.

Silence reigned for a second after the door closed behind the two men, and the floor creaked as Carl shifted his weight.

“Sooo…” Maggie drawled. “Eight? Or more like a seven but you didn’t want to say it in front of him?”

She and Daryl hadn’t shared much more than some handholding and a clumsy few kisses, but Carol met the other woman’s eyes squarely.

“Ten,” she said, and meant it.

#

When they closed themselves into their private room that night, Daryl was stiff as a chunk of frozen pond water. Carol was feeling bold, so before she slid under the sheets, she’d taken off not just her boots but her cargo pants—they were lumpy as hell to sleep in, with all their pockets. But after all that, Daryl wouldn’t even come to bed. He kept messing with his crossbow and things inside his pack, pulling them out and then grunting with frustration and chucking them back in.

Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore. There wasn’t much worse than waiting in bed—pantsless—for a man who didn’t seem to be in any particular hurry.

“If you come to bed,” she said, trying to pitch her voice low and a little sultry to hide her uncertainty. “I’ll tell you a secret.”

His head came up, but he wasn’t looking at her. Not exactly. “S’rry,” he grumbled. “Ain’t you.”

“I know,” she said, though she hadn’t, not for sure. She smiled, relief making it come easy, and crooked a finger to beckon him closer.

They were out of candles, so she’d aimed a flashlight at the wall to soften its light. It was a shameful waste of batteries, but she’d look extra hard for them on the next scavenging mission to make up for it. The extra risk was completely worth it, to be able to track the changing expressions on Daryl’s face when they were alone.

He sat on the edge of the bed to take off his boots, but when he rolled in beneath the covers, he still had his pants on. A wisp of disappointment colored her mood. Still, it was Daryl. It’s not as if he’d be comfortable taking off his pants just because she had. In fact, he’d been so busy fidgeting she wasn’t sure he even saw what she’d done.

He lay back, cocking an arm up to tuck it beneath his head, then taking it back down so it lay rigidly beside him.

She rolled up onto her side, scooting close enough that when she started to speak, she could see the light shiver that ran through him at her breath tickling his ear.

“Is this okay? This way they can’t hear us,” she said. She was guessing that was why he was so uncomfortable; because he didn’t want anybody to hear what did or didn’t go on in here. Thanks to Maggie, he probably all thought they were critiquing his performance, too. Carol made a mental note to “lose” half the younger girl’s socks the next time laundry day came around.

He nodded. “What’s the secret?”

Now it was Carol’s turn to hide a shiver. When he pitched his deep voice to a whisper, it made a delicious sort of rumble/murmur that sounded better than sex. Almost.

She laid a hand over his shoulder, because it felt awkward to be so close without touching. “Remember the night I told you the Velveteen Rabbit story?”

“Mm-hmm.”

She pressed her thighs together and suppressed the urge to ask him at least thirty more questions he’d have to whisper the answers to.

“I wanted to stay out there and sleep next to you so bad that night,” she breathed. “It was all I could think about, back in that room by myself.”

“Why didn’t you?” He turned his head, craning it to try to see her face but they were lying too close. “I didn’t tell ya to leave.”

“I didn’t know if you wanted me to stay.”

He propped himself up on an elbow, staring at her with that knitted-brow look he got when someone said something he deemed particularly unintelligent.

She rolled her eyes, breathing out a frustrated laugh. “But how would I _know_ , Daryl? It’s always been me asking you. I asked you to skip rocks down at the pond. I was the first to say you meant something to me, that I didn’t want to lose you. The first to ask you to share blankets on cold nights. A girl likes to be asked, too.”

He looked so uncomfortable that she lifted a hand to cradle his jaw to soften her admission.

“It’d just be nice, that’s all. Just once, if you could tell me something that _you_ wanted. Or show me, even.”

He struggled, silently, for a long moment and she would have paid in gold for a peek at any one of the thoughts churning through his head just then.

“What if ya don’t…like it?”

She exhaled, her smile softening as she brushed her thumb against his cheek. “Do I seem shy about speaking my mind?”

Just then, an aching sort of moan sounded from the second bedroom next door, right before something started thumping rhythmically against the wall.

Daryl swore, rolling to stare toward the other room. “You fuckin’ with me?”

Carol’s fists clenched and she wanted to howl, too, but in frustration, not ecstasy. Except then Maggie’s moan rang out again. Higher pitched, warbling longer than the first. The squeaking of the bedsprings joined the thumping against the wall.

Daryl flopped back on the bed, glaring at the ceiling. “Damn. Them sumbitches ain’t never quiet, but they ain’t usually loud enough to draw walkers.”

Carol’s eyes widened, and she clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the giggles. “Oh my God.”

Daryl gave her a sour look as Maggie cried out the same phrase in the next room, with quite a bit more enthusiasm.

Carol poked him in the side. “You realize what they’re doing?”

“I weren’t raised in a damn nun house, _Carol_.”

“They’re covering for us,” she whispered. “To give us some privacy so nobody can hear what we’re doing.” Most likely because Glenn felt bad about Maggie needling Daryl earlier. The sensitive Korean had warmed to Daryl on the many runs they’d done together, and Maggie had a softer heart than she liked to pretend in public.

Emotions flickered across Daryl’s face too fast to count, and Carol laid a hand on his chest and leaned down to whisper, “You lead this time.” And then she reached across him and clicked off the flashlight, plunging them into darkness.


	27. Daryl Takes the Lead

As soon as she turned off the flashlight, Carol regretted it.

She hated to lose the light, because his face was the only clue she usually got about what the quiet hunter was thinking. And if any part of what he wanted included nudity, she was even sorrier to lose the sight of that. But then, neither one of them were exactly confident about their bodies.

When it came time to change clothes, Daryl retreated even further into the cover of the woods than _Beth_ did, whereas the rest of the group had gotten comfortable enough that they barely even turned their backs anymore.

His voice rumbled out of the darkness. “You don’t like it, you gotta say.”

“I will,” she whispered back. “But I’m not going to hold it against you if you try something that’s not my favorite. How else would we ever figure it out?”

He didn’t touch her. As she waited in the dark to see what he’d do, the theatrical thumping of the bed next door started to get inside her head a little. She tried not to think of Glenn and Maggie over there, but her mind was full of nude bodies straining together, slick with sweat. And as much as she didn’t want to admit she felt it, there was something erotic about the two couples so close together. Both exploring each other’s bodies…

Carol clamped her eyes closed, even though it was dark. She was just too pent-up, that was all. She was about to make a joke to break the tension when he touched her.

It was just the tips of his fingers brushing against her throat. She jumped, and he jerked away. “Sorry, I’m okay. I can’t see a thing, that’s all.” She groped blindly for his hand and brought it back to her neck when she found it. “Feels nice.”

His hand crept closer, from fingertips to his whole fingers sliding over her skin. Carol’s head went light and tingly, and it felt like all the blood in her body was pumping through the hot veins in her throat, ultra-sensitive to his touch. So when his mouth touched her there, she shivered and a scrap of a moan pulled free from her lips.

Silently, she blessed Maggie for her camouflaging cries from the other room. Daryl’s sparse beard thrilled the skin above Carol’s collarbone as he laid another tentative, close-mouthed kiss against her neck.

“Tickle?” he rumbled at her when she shuddered again, her toes curling beneath the sheets.

“No. But it feels more than nice,” she said hoarsely.

He nuzzled her a little, his nose stroking along her jaw beneath her ear. “Didn’t do too much of this, back before. The fuckin’ part, yeah, but not all the rest.” He paused. “Sorry. Shouldnta said it like that.”

She smiled, holding very still in hopes that he’d keep kissing her neck. “You didn’t shock me, Daryl. I don’t mind when you’re blunt. I mean, it’s a little rude to tease by telling me you know plenty about the sex part, but other than that…”

He hesitated, then an amused breath chuffed out of him.

She grinned into the dark room. There was something about being able to set a powerful man off-balance with the lightest of flirtations. It reminded her of a feeling so long gone from her life that she barely remembered if she’d ever had it. It reminded her of that red dress, pulled from a car trunk and held up against her body like the memory of pert breasts, lush thick hair. All the things she’d had once upon a time, before Ed.

Daryl made her feel her sexuality all in a rush, like magic.

She’d said it was his turn to lead, but she couldn’t help her hand creeping up onto his hip, finding bare skin just above his belt. His fingers jerked against her, his breathing stuttering just as hard. Slowly, she slid her hand under his shirt, stroking his skin with her thumb as she went. Not exactly sure if she was seducing him or soothing him.

All she knew was that she could make his big hands tremble, and his entire body freeze into place like he couldn’t concentrate on anything else as long as she was touching him. Ed used to watch football games while she pleasured him, when he wanted to relax. The thought gave her a sudden, perverse urge to unbutton Daryl’s pants and see what _his_ reaction would be if she took him in her mouth.

Her hand moved around to his back, her nails tickling just above his waistband and enjoying the tensing of his muscles in her wake. Her fingertips crossed slight ridges in his skin, but she didn’t think much of it until he pushed at her shoulder, quick and panicky. “Don’t.”

She jerked her hand back, her heart pounding at his rejection. She shouldn’t get bossy, Ed had told her a thousand times. It was unladylike, it was disgusting to men…

She blinked and shoved her late husband out of her mind. Scars.

That’s what those ridges were, on Daryl’s back. She knew how marked he was, beneath his clothes. Her libido had run away with her in this dark room with the sounds of sex drifting through from next door.

He wasn’t touching her anymore; had backed off entirely. She bit her lip, knowing this was a turning point. If they stopped here, they’d both be so mortified that he might not risk doing anything with her again. For months or maybe ever.

“Okay,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “That’s okay. I won’t touch your back. Can I—are there other places that are okay?”

His fingers brushed her arm, settled softly there after a second. “Yeah.”

She scooted a little closer, face to face with him though she could hardly see a thing. “Can you tell me where?”

“Ever’place else,” he grunted. “Don’t mind.”

“All right.” She brushed his hair back, warmth filling her up to bursting at even that small step forward.

She ran her nails along his scalp like he’d enjoyed last night. He immediately dropped his head forward to give her better access and she smiled. Taking his hand, she nudged it under her shirt, onto the swell of her hip. “I don’t mind if you touch _my_ back,” she said, trying to keep the mood light.

He moved his hand under her shirt, his smallest finger skimming the waistband of her panties in the back, and Carol’s smile vanished as she struggled to catch her suddenly escalating breath. His calloused fingers trailed up the slight dip marking her spine. When they found the line of her bra, they twitched and started back down again. She leaned into his chest, giving him free rein, and he dropped his head back to her neck again, brushing scratchy kisses along the line of her pulse.

Every place on her body was suddenly the most sensitive thing she could imagine. His touches stayed chaste, tentative, but sweat broke out over her skin. She squirmed, squeezing her bare thighs together as a slow burn built within her. She pressed closer to Daryl’s fully-clothed body, the hardness of it a relief she felt more than understood. Her thoughts were growing muzzy, all made of heat and want. She swallowed against a dry mouth, her hands clenching on his shirt.

She tried to caress him, too, but she was so distracted by the sensations torching through her body that she was clumsy. Then his tongue touched her neck.

She jerked forward and a thick, hard line pressed into her belly for a bare second. He shifted his hips back, but his tongue grew bolder, giving open kisses to her neck now.

A moan sobbed out of her, made of breath more than sound, and a rumble from deep in his chest answered her. Would this be how it was now? Her learning an entire language of his grunts and rumbles again, this time the sexual ones. Her hands came to life again, this time to hold him so she could cuddle a little closer.

Her breasts skimmed his chest, her nipples so hard she wondered if he could feel them through her bra and shirt. Her hips rocked and she tried to hold back for a second, then gave up when he growled into his next kiss, his teeth scraping her for an instant as his tongue swept hot across her neck.

Carol bucked against him, pressing her panties right into the front of his jeans. Daryl’s hand on her back wasn’t gentle anymore. He clamped her into him, holding totally still as the line of his cock pulsed beneath his pants. She rocked against it, the need building in her making her bold.

He panted, his breath chilling the wet marks he’d left on her neck. “Carol?”

“I like this,” she murmured, being as clear as she knew how to be. “Do you want to stop? Is this too fast?”

“No…” The word quivered out like a groan. He was rock hard from head to toe right now, his muscles quaking, and she had no idea why he was holding back. She slung a leg up over his hip, opening the heat at the core of her to him. She set up a slow, steady rhythm, rocking herself over his erection and even with his pants between them it felt so good her hands fisted in his hair.

He pushed a desperate, uneven kiss just beneath her ear and tipped his hips forward, offering the line of his arousal even more clearly for her to pleasure herself on.

A knock banged on a door.

They both froze, and the bed next door stopped squeaking. A few thumps came through, then a door flung open with a whoosh. “Seriously?” Maggie demanded.

“I might say the same to you,” Rick said, but his tone was tight beneath the Georgia drawl. “Your triple X rating is seeping right through the door and doing a number on our PG13 over here.”

“Not our door,” Carol whispered. “Please Daryl, don’t stop.”

She wriggled against him, letting the thickness of his cock push against her panties, so she could rub it just exactly where she wanted it the most… She gasped, her movements going jerky and instinctive as desire wound tighter and tighter inside of her.

His arms closed around her, both of them straining to get closer. Her breasts raked heedlessly over his chest and dampness rushed beneath her panties. She wanted to rip them out of the way, to feel bare skin against skin. His hips thrust against her and her whole body went rigid with electricity.

“Don’t stop,” she gasped and then buried her face against his heated skin, breathing in shuddering gasps as her heel hooked around the back of his thigh, holding him right where she needed him as wave after wave of pleasure washed down her body.

When the last one receded, she fell slack. Half against Daryl, half onto the bed as the sounds of arguing went on in the other room. Glenn’s voice joined in, something about tent walls and Rick being a hypocrite.

Carol reached up and touched the fly of Daryl’s jeans where he was still rampantly hard, the fabric carrying a hint of dampness from her response. “Can I lead now?” she whispered, her fingers starting to pull his button open.

His hand clamped down on hers. “No, nuh-uh. They’ll hear me,” he whispered urgently.

“Clench your teeth,” she said. “Like I did.” She nuzzled a smiling kiss into his neck. “It’s kind of sexy, trying to stay quiet.”

“No,” he said. “Not here. Not…I wanna be alone. When we do.”

She stroked a wistful hand down the impressive length of him. “Okay.”

She wasn’t exactly surprised. Intimacy wasn’t easy for Daryl, and she was more than a little flattered that she was the only one he trusted to be near him in that ultimate moment of vulnerability.

To remove temptation, she forced her hands north and cupped his jaw instead, pulling him in for a kiss more uninhibited than any they’d shared yet. “It’s just not fair,” she whispered. “You have no idea how good that felt.”

“Felt plenty good,” he rasped. “C’mere.”

Rick and Maggie kept bickering next door but apparently all Daryl’s practicing on her neck had taught him a thing or two about using his tongue because once he started kissing her, she didn’t hear a word of the rest of the argument.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Sorry, guys. I did try my best, but apparently it takes more than 60,000 damned words to get Season 2 Daryl to have sexual relations with an auditory audience.
> 
> In other news, I *want* to feel bad that the epilogue for this fic is already three freaking chapters long, but I kinda don’t. At the rate I’m going, though, the epilogue is going to be its own story. Like, a really dirty one.


	28. Broken Toys

The breeze shifted, ruffling the bushes and carrying the scent of sweet green grass, rotting bodies and clean water.

Carol swung the plastic water jugs she held, enjoying that they were still empty and easy to carry, and that the day had turned warm. More and more, it seemed like glimpses of spring were peeking through. Just last week, they’d been caught by that blizzard. Three nights ago Daryl had made her get up and do jumping jacks at three a.m. to get circulation back into her feet when even his dedicated spooning couldn’t slow her shivers. But today, it was edging toward sixty degrees, the sky was the blue of a bottomless lake, and she couldn’t hear a walker for miles.

It didn’t hurt her mood that Daryl kept sending her sideways, searing looks. He didn’t look like a man having clean thoughts.

She just smiled, a bit of a jaunt to her step. “If you keep looking at me like that, I’m going to do something that makes you blush.”

He stole another glance at her; didn’t look entirely unhappy about that idea.

It had only been a few days since he’d pushed her into the best climax she’d had in years without either of them even taking their clothes off. At this point, she would trade a steak dinner for an hour alone with him and four safe walls around them. It certainly didn’t help her sexual frustration to lie close to his back all day on the motorcycle, especially with the big engine purring like a lullaby beneath her.

“How long ya been thinkin’ things like that?” He raised one of his hands, still holding an empty milk jug, and scratched his forehead with a thumb. “‘Bout me, I mean. Back at quarry camp, did ya?”

Her stomach sank a little at the question, and she focused on her footsteps, not tripping over any of the bones or logs they passed. She knew he’d watched her bathe back then, maybe even had the start of a crush on her. She didn’t want to hurt him by admitting her head hadn’t quite been in the same place.

“I was a married woman back then,” she said slowly. “I was never the type to think of straying. And then, Ed was so jealous, I shut down even the part of me that enjoyed a nice looking man, in case he were to catch me peeking.” There had been times she paid dearly for even a glance. It wasn’t worth it. Nothing was.

She glanced around for walkers, thinking over the rest of it. She hadn’t intended to talk about this, but then, why wouldn’t she? Daryl would listen. 

“At that point, sexual desire…it was like my dirty little secret.”

His head jerked toward her. “What? Why?”

Sex with her and Ed had been boring on their best day, and unspeakable on their worst, but she wasn’t about to say that to Daryl.

“My vibrator, I mean.” She tossed him a little smile, telling the truth, but keeping it light. “Ed didn’t know about it. I kept it hidden in the bottom of my box of tampons.”

He would have thought it meant she was a hussy, lusting after other men. Hell, she only wished she’d have had the freedom and energy to lust after other men. It had been as much as she could do to survive, to keep Sophia safe. To try and cling to the good times when Ed wasn’t angry with her and convince herself they had a future together, that they were a family.

“It was like my little rebellion, _enjoying_ it when he was gone.” She smirked, kicking through the grass. She could hear the stream now, so they must be getting close. “So yes, I think a part of me definitely noticed how handsome you were. But also…I was so scared all the time. Of walkers, for Sophia, watching Ed. I was distracted. But once Ed and Merle were gone, you were good to me. In little ways, but you were. I noticed.”

They glanced at each other at the same time, their eyes colliding. She could see the question in him, the longing. It was so familiar, that _want_ to be seen. She fought her own battles with it, nearly daily. So she answered it.

“That night in the CDC, when you slept on my lap. I think that’s what started to change things for me.”

They reached the stream and she picked her way down the bank to the edge, squatting to fill her jugs. Daryl knelt by her side, still watching her. Before she quite realized what he was doing, he leaned over and pushed a rough kiss into her cheek.

A smile blossomed on her face. “Hey, where are you going?” She put her water containers down and cupped his jaw with a hand, drawing his face back to hers for a slower, more thorough kiss. He pulled her to standing, his arm around her back lifting her off the ground to settle her closer. A throaty moan escaped her at the sensation of being matched tightly to his body, from muscular thighs to his strong chest.

“Sorry,” he muttered, loosening his grip.

“No, do it again.”

His arm tightened spasmodically, as if it set him reeling just to hear her say she liked it. And she did. Just those few seconds of friction against him had her gasping, hopelessly turned on. She’d felt desire with her vibrator, but it was so much more intoxicating when it was for another _person_. It spread beyond the center of her and thrilled all the way out into her fingers and toes. Hell, even her knees were starting to tingle.

Daryl kissed her, over and over, pulling back a little in between like each one was a separate experiment, a foray requiring him to build up his courage all over again. In the distance, a growling moan sounded, but his lips were just starting to part against hers and she didn’t want to stop. She wanted his _hands_ on her. Those quick, capable hands that somehow turned hesitant and uncertain as soon as they encountered her skin.

Carol pulled back with a groan. “Daryl, there’s a walker.”

“What?”

She pointed to where she’d heard the moan and he hauled his crossbow off his back and shot it. He turned in a slow circle, scrutinizing the forest around them, and then cursed darkly as he slung his bow onto his back again. Carol pretended not to notice when he had to adjust the front of his pants.

“Can’t be kissing on you out here,” he growled, snatching up a water jug and slamming it into the creek. “Get us both killed.”

“Ah, but what a way to die…” She bumped his shoulder with hers, trying to get a smile out of him. It did not work.

Sighing, she pulled the top off her water jug and started to fill it, letting the chilly water run over her hands in hopes it would cool off the rest of her. What she wouldn’t give for a hotel room…

When all four water containers were full, they started back. They only got a few yards before a female walker staggered out of the trees. She wore cut-off shorts and a halter top that had gotten twisted, one of her breasts shoved half-out of the opening. Daryl looked away.

“I’ll get this one.” Carol set down her water and pulled her knife, making sure her gun was ready if she needed it.

“Don’t walk straight up to ‘em if ya don’t have to.” Daryl nodded. “Let her come after me, get her from the side or behind. That way they can’t grab ya.” He set down his water and took a couple steps forward, clapping his hands to draw the walker, though he still wouldn’t look directly at her.

Carol moved behind the walker, but seeing her zero in on Daryl made Carol’s stomach churn. She jumped forward and crammed her knife up into the back of the walker’s skull with all her strength.

“Don’t have to stab so hard,” Daryl said as the walker fell. “Save ya energy. That’s the whole point o’ sneaking up on ‘em.”

“Sorry,” she said, though she wasn’t. That walker’s rotted hands reaching for him made her wish she had an excuse to stab it again. She wiped off her knife and put it away, retrieving her water. He still looked unhappy, probably feeling guilty about not hearing that walker earlier. “After the CDC,” she said. “I kept catching myself looking at you.”

He blinked, surprised.

“You probably never even noticed, but I was watching you that day, on the road.” She smirked. “I’d just taken my first really good look at your ass when you went by. I found this red dress a second later and it was like this lightbulb went on. Like, maybe I could make myself pretty again.”

Daryl smiled, shyly. “What day was that?”

“The day Sophia disappeared,” Carol said matter-of-factly. She tipped her head. “For a while, I thought that was God punishing me for being a hussy. Distracted by a handsome man so I didn’t keep my daughter close enough. But back then, even if she’d been under the same car as me, I couldn’t have saved her from those walkers. I would have just died with her.” She gulped a breath and let it out slow. That walker a moment ago had been as easy as taking out the trash. But it hadn’t been like that, back when she lost Sophia.

Daryl bumped her with his shoulder, looking worried.

“I’m okay.” She met his eyes so he could see she wasn’t lying. “The rest of the group gets so skittish when I so much as say her name. But I miss talking about her.”

He slid a long finger into the handle of one of her water jugs, took it right out of her hand. He transferred three of the jugs to one of his hands and she was so distracted wondering how he could grip all three at once that she almost jumped when he took her hand.

“Started lookin’ at ya the second day in camp.”

She ducked her head, smiling at the ground. His attempt to cheer her up was painfully obvious, but it was also kind of working. “The second day, huh? What’d I do wrong on the first?”

“Nothin’. I just…dunno, wasn’t paying attention.”

“And you were on the second?”

“You was playin’ with your little girl and something she did made you laugh. Your face…” He stole a glance at her. “Never saw a girl so pretty with short hair.”

“Thanks a lot,” she said dryly.

“Not what I meant. Just, like it long usually. That’s all.”

She squeezed his hand so he’d know she was teasing, letting their hands swing a little as she walked. The jug in her right hand didn’t seem so heavy today. It was an odd thought, knowing a man had been looking at her in that way during a time when she hardly felt like a woman at all. When she certainly hadn’t felt attractive.

“Is that why you searched so hard for Sophia? Because you were starting to like me?”

He shook his head. “Nah.”

He didn’t say more, but strangely, knowing that made her feel a little better.

They were coming back into sight of camp now, and Daryl pulled his hand away.

Carol’s face stiffened. “Since you got to ask a question, do I get one, too?”

He swapped a water jug to his now-free hand. “Mm. If ya want.”

“Why don’t you ever touch me when anyone else can see? It’s not like the others don’t know about us.”

He started fidgeting, taking a step toward camp, then back away. He looked supremely uncomfortable. “Dunno. Seems like bad luck, ’s all.”

Her stomach twisted a little. Of course he would think that, living the life he had. Now that she thought about it, he rarely showed happiness of any kind. Smiled like it was a secret. The way he laughed, it hardly made a sound.

“Your father’s not here anymore, to break anything that’s important to you,” she said quietly. “I’m not some toy you’re never going to get to keep.”

He stared past her, and when she followed his gaze to see if there was a walker, there was. Except it was already dead, its face destroyed, but its tiny body still dressed in a red Hello Kitty jumper.

“I dunno,” Daryl said. “Think God likes breaking shit as much as my daddy ever did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: If you watch that clip of Carol finding the red dress, it was right after Daryl went by, which tickled my writer’s imagination something fierce. Actually, in early Season 2 there are a lot of moments where the camera catches them watching each other, which is weird because I don’t think the writers had planned anything special for the two of them at that point. McReedus feels? My writer’s imagination gone wild? Could be either.
> 
> Fun fact: Next chapter has my favorite chapter name of the whole fic. It is weird AF.


	29. Give Me Quinoa or Give Me Death

It was funny, this long after the apocalypse, how she still wasn’t used to the wrongness of an empty town. Carol shifted her bag up higher on her shoulder and tried to shake off her uneasy feeling. Empty was good. Most towns were crawling with walkers, but either someone had cleaned this one out, or a noise had drawn them off in a herd somewhere else.

“Been a long time since they’ve had a street sweeper,” Hershel commented, stepping over the windswept heaps of leaves and trash that had collected on the cracked blacktop.

Glenn glanced back and held out a hand, waving it downward in a signal for quieter voices. Maggie looked embarrassed and narrowed her eyes at her father. Carol nodded to show she understood. Even though they couldn’t see any walkers, voices could draw them in.

This was the first real run she’d been on, and she was eager not to make any beginner mistakes. The group had split into three—Lori, Beth and T-dog guarding the vehicles; Rick and Daryl taking Carl to hit the sporting goods store on one of the back streets. It was Carl’s first run, too. Rick had let him clear a house or two since earning his gun back, but this was a much more dangerous proposition. The only way Lori would agree was if Daryl _and_ Rick were in Carl’s group. Which made Daryl unhappy about Carol going with just Maggie and Glenn, because he said they’d watch out for each other first. That had led to a lot of yelling until Hershel had ended the argument by saying he’d go along to help her group out.

Fortunately, once they were out of Daryl’s sight, Hershel had told her in his understated way that he understood she didn’t need protection. “But it’s hard to convince a man of that, when the lady in question is special to him,” he’d said.

Carol had very nearly blushed.

Now, the four of them headed down the garbage-strewn street, keeping close to the buildings. Glenn gestured toward the grocery store at the end of the street. “We’ll go around back first, check for delivery trucks or untapped store rooms,” he explained in a low voice.

Carol pointed across the street and tilted her head in question.

The sign said Sprouts: Health Food Products, with a leafy shoot for an S. It was small enough that maybe it could have escaped notice in the initial looting.

“Don’t those just sell vitamins and stuff?” Glenn asked.

Maggie grimaced. “And tofu. That’ll all have gone bad by now.”

“We could use some vitamins, even if there’s no food left,” Hershel said. “Carol and I can look while you check for delivery trucks and then we can all meet up and clear the main grocery store.”

Glenn glanced at Carol. “Maybe we shouldn’t split up.”

“Why? Did _somebody_ tell you we shouldn’t?” Carol gave him her have-you-been-stealing-cookies-out-of-the-pantry look.

“No.” He flushed. “It’s just uh, safer.”

“Uh-huh.” Carol folded her arms. “Well, tell Daryl it was my idea and you don’t make my decisions any more than he does.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Glenn said. “He didn’t say anything. I just know if it were Maggie, he’d do the same.”

His girlfriend took a sharp step back. “Oh really? Since when do I need you _or_ Daryl to man-sit me? Do either of you two gorilla brains remember who defended the farm before y’all showed up?”

“I don’t have to think you’re weak to want to protect you—” Glenn started.

“This would be one of those times, son,” Hershel interrupted, “when it would be best to go check the trucks.”

Given the fire in Maggie’s eyes, Carol was inclined to agree. She could hear their quiet bickering as they moved off together, and she was turning to Hershel with a wry smile when something moaned in the alley behind them. She stepped forward, her knife already out of its sheath, but the walker wasn’t in sight yet.

“You go for your knife before your pistol,” Hershel observed.

She glanced at him, but couldn’t tell if he was criticizing her or not. “Quieter.”

“A gun would be better until you’re sure there’s not more of them.”

“If I use a gun, there _will_ be more of them.” On the heels of the argument with Glenn, her voice came out more tart than she meant it to, but Hershel simply smiled, his face crinkling under his beard as if he approved of her response, even if she was disagreeing with him. A single, rail-thin walker stumbled around the dumpster at the far end of the alley. Carol jerked her head toward the store. “I’ll take this one. You go ahead and check for food.”

“No, I’ll take this one. You’re probably a better match for all the ones inside the store.” He slung his shotgun onto his back and loosened the hatchet from his belt. She stood a little straighter when she realized he wasn’t making a joke at her expense; he was serious.

She was almost more nervous when she crossed the street, not wanting to mess up after insisting to everyone that she could handle it. So she pulled her gun when she got to the health food store, and waited extra long after tapping on the window. Still, nothing stirred inside. The bottom half of the glass door was busted out, sunlight gleaming on the daggers of glass left behind. No walkers could be trapped inside.

She holstered her gun with a sigh. Walkers hadn’t shattered that door—they always pounded up high, so they would have broken the top half. She could see their dusty finger smears along every window on this street. The signs of forced entry meant there was almost certainly nothing left inside.

She ducked in anyway, holding her messenger bag carefully so it wouldn’t snag on the glass. Her hip brushed a long leather strip of sleigh bells, sending an oddly festive jingling throughout the shadowy store. The air trapped inside was redolent of rotten milk and dust, the floor scattered with ripped packaging and mouse turds. Carol grimaced, skirting the picked-over shelves. There had been food, once. Now, there were mostly essential oils and incense, and exotic-sounding supplements that might or might not have any nutrition in them. She dropped a few bottles into her bag. Anything that looked like it might have actual vitamins in it. The two bottles of folic acid supplements she snatched with a happy gasp. Lori would need those.

She spied a square poking out from under one of the displays and knelt to grab it.

It was a family-sized box of quinoa, chewed on one corner, but the mice hadn’t gotten inside. A grin swelled across her face. Food. It wasn’t much, but _she’d_ gotten it for the group. She’d fed her family. She brushed a thumb across the label, suddenly understanding why Daryl spent so much of his time hunting.

Tucking it in her bag, she glanced toward the back. Maybe there was a store room…

The sleigh bells jangled. “Don’t bother, Hershel,” she said as she turned. “This place is pretty picked—”

The head that ducked in through the door was blonde and shaggy, not gray. She froze. A person. Oh shit, a live _person._ Where was his group? Where was Hershel? He should have finished with that walker by now unless there had been more than one.

The guy kept his gun on her as he straightened, dropping his backpack next to him. “Hands up.”

She’d been busy with her bag and the quinoa, so all her weapons were holstered. She raised her hands, palms facing him, and every inch they rose away from her belt felt like a tiny death.

Gray Eyes. Frat Boy.

_She better not have no wrinkled pussy._

She couldn’t surrender. If he needed a gun to force her to submit to what he wanted, she was _not_ doing whatever that was.

If she went for her pistol, could she get the safety off and pull the trigger before he got over his shock and shot her back?

Then Rick’s voice came into her head. _If it’s a bad guy and you aren’t willing to pull the trigger, they can see it in your eyes._

If she were the bad guy, what could she see in his eyes?

“Where’s the food?” he demanded.

Carol blinked, trying to focus on his face. His eyes were set too wide in his face, giving him a slightly walleyed look. Thick freckles overlapped on his cheeks so most of his face was a dusty brown and his lips pinched together in a pale pink bow that didn’t match the rest of him. His gun shook and he kept adjusting his grip on it.

He was scared. Carol’s eyes narrowed.

“There isn’t any food left,” she said.

“Gimme your bag, then,” he ordered. His gun may have been trembling, but he never looked away from her. She wasn’t sure he wouldn’t shoot her by accident, and definitely wasn’t sure he wouldn’t do it on purpose, but he was nervous enough that she wondered if this was his first face-off with another human since the turn.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said. “There’s not even anything here for us to fight over. You can just go your way and I can go mine. Isn’t there enough death in this world already?”

“Gimme your gun, knife.” His gaze flicked over her. “Whatever you got. Lay it down. No, uh, I mean, bring it over here and then lay it down.”

He was even worse at this than she was.

The folic acid and quinoa weighed heavy in her bag. It was dinner for her family, the first food she’d brought in since all this started. She wasn’t going to die for it, but she wasn’t going to give it to an idiot, either. This guy wasn’t going to hurt her. He might shoot her, but he wouldn’t try to take her.

She took off her bag, held it out in one hand as she eased closer to him. “You should go. Look, I know you’re hungry and just trying to get by, but my husband…” She shook her head. “If he sees you pointing a gun at me, he’ll kill you.”

The guy’s eyes flickered wider and he shifted his grip on the gun again, but he didn’t drop it. “Shut up,” he ordered.

He was tall, a few inches taller than Rick or Daryl and maybe thirty pounds heavier, though only about half of that was muscle. She dropped her bag right in front of his feet and reached for her weapons, moving slowly so he wouldn’t get jumpy.

She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Please. He’s not rational, not these days. Not where I’m concerned. He’ll hurt you before he slits your throat.”

“Give me that gun,” the guy snapped. She was close enough to see the pulse beating wildly in his throat.

Hershel should have been back by now. He needed her help and she was stuck with this moron, who was robbing her for a messenger bag that hung so limp there clearly wasn’t anything in it worth stealing.

Carol took her pistol out of the holster.

“Left hand!” the words exploded out of him so fast spittle sprayed her cheek. Her lip twitched a little. “Take it out with your left hand,” he repeated.

“All right,” she said soothingly, and took out her knife with her right hand, her gun with her left. Her fingers locked home in the brass knuckle hilt of the dagger. “I’m just setting them down now.” Her eyes flickered to the side, then widened. “Oh god— _run_ ,” she hissed. “Just run!”

He whipped around, bringing his gun to bear on the glass door. Nothing was there but dust and trash. As soon as he realized his mistake he cocked his revolver and spun back her direction.

His face rammed straight into a metal-clad fist. Bone cracked and blood gushed over silver loops of steel. He staggered back into a row of shelves and went down with a clatter of tin and a high shrieking moan of pain.

Carol sheathed her knife, stuffed her pistol back into its holster. Swept his off the ground and uncocked it before kicking the cylinder out to the side, and dropping its three bullets into the cup of her palm. She left his revolver by his foot and fisted the bullets into her pocket, sweeping up his bag with hers as she darted for the door and left him hunched over his broken nose.

The street sat empty as she sprinted across, but her heart was galloping a triumphant beat. She’d _won_. That guy had been nothing but an amateur next to her. She hadn’t even had to kill him. Adrenaline still shrieked through all her limbs, but her feet were light as air as she ran.

She found Hershel in the alley, bent over and panting with his hands and bloody hatchet braced against his knees. The bodies of three walkers lay twisted around him.

“Glenn was right,” he gasped when he saw her. “We shouldn’t split up.”

She grabbed his arm. “Let’s find him then, and fast. Turns out, we’re not the only game in town today.”

#

As the sun set below the trees, Carol put on leather gloves to lift the pot out of the stove and carefully poured the heated water into a bowl. She’d gotten a lot better this year at cooking over an open fire. At first, there’d been a lot of burns—both of her and the food. Picking up the bowl and Hershel’s surgical soap, she carried them past the parked trucks and motorcycle to where Daryl lay bleeding on a blanket.

He looked grouchy.

He had one rag clapped to the cuts on his shoulder, which he’d used to break the window, and another stuffed inside the rip in his pants, where he’d cut his leg on the way _through_ the window.

The raid on the sporting goods store hadn’t gone well. They’d come away with a good amount of ammo from locked cupboards in the back, a silencer that fit the pistol Carl had finally earned back, and a double handful of pre-fletched arrow blanks that could be cut down to fit Daryl’s crossbow. Unfortunately, as they’d been coming out, they ran into a small herd: maybe 15 or 20 head. Since there were too many to fight, Daryl volunteered to draw them off so Carl and Rick could carry the heavy haul of supplies to safety.

Maggie knelt on the edge of the blanket, helping her father prepare the suturing kit.

“I don’t understand how drawing off a herd ends up with you jumping out a second story window,” she said. “You’re like the girl in the horror movie, running up the stairs instead of out the back door.”

“Goddanged house didn’t have no back door. I’s slamming doors the whole way through the house and they was busting through ‘em just as fast. Last room I hit only had picture windas, not one o’ them that opens.” Daryl winced. “Wished I woulda had time to break it with my bow or something, though. Hurt.”

Maggie burst out laughing. “Really? Breaking a window with yourself hurts? Who would have thunk?”

Daryl’s eyes flared. “Funny thing, fuckin’ herd didn’t seem keen on waiting to sink their teeth into my ass. Shoulda just asked nice and polite, I guess. Why’n’t you try that the next time you’re swarmed and shooting ‘em off with them bullets I got ya, huh?”

“Maggie, why don’t you go and see if you can relieve Lori from cooking before she oversalts the stew again? She probably wants a little time alone with her husband and son, anyway, since Daryl saved them from such a close call today.” Carol’s voice came out sharp, and she had to make an effort to soften it. “I can help Hershel.”

“But you’re not trained to—”

“I think that would be a fine idea, Maggie,” Hershel said. “Go along now.” He peeled back Daryl’s makeshift bandages enough to get a closer look with the flashlight, and his frown grew more disapproving the longer he looked.

Carol couldn’t stop herself from giving Daryl’s uninjured calf a tiny pat. “Do you want me to grab you a few Advil before we start? We can spare them.”

“Ain’t worth it. ’S gonna hurt either way.”

“Next time, try harder to find a house with a back door,” Hershel advised. “You’re going to break your legs one of these days, and those, I can’t sew back together.”

“Didn’t jump out the winda to the ground. Jumped out the winda to the carport roof. Christ, how stupid ya think I am?” Daryl’s voice was starting to get louder.

“I don’t think you’re at all stupid. I expect most of the stupid people are dead by now,” Hershel said. “What I do think is you sacrifice yourself before considering the other options, and sooner or later, you’re going to get hurt badly enough you can’t drag yourself back to camp for me to piece you back together.”

“I’m takin’ care of the group, asshole!” Daryl hurled his bloody rag into Hershel’s face. “Less’n you’re volunteering to take my spot on the front lines, get to stitchin’ and quit yer bitchin’.”

Hershel threw up his hands. “That’s it. I’m done.” He pushed up to his feet and walked stiffly back toward the fire.

Carol grabbed a clean towel she’d brought for Hershel and pressed it to Daryl’s freely bleeding wound.

“There’s more than one way to take care of the group,” she said, holding his eyes as she steadied his shoulder from the back and the front to keep pressure on the wound. “Part of that’s keeping yourself in one piece. As bad as they are at communicating it, that’s what everyone is trying to say.”

She rolled her eyes tolerantly. His lips twitched like he wanted to smile, but his eyes were still suspicious.

Carol sucked in a breath and put on her Mom voice. “Hershel, you stop it _right_ now.”

He halted, then slowly turned around.

“The cuts are too deep. You know very well you can’t leave them without stitches.”

He hesitated for a long moment, then moved back toward them.

“He’ll be quiet the rest of the time,” she said. “I promise.”

“Yes, he will be,” Hershel grumbled. “Because you’re going to do the stitching. Get your hands washed up.”

“What?” Daryl stiffened. “She don’t know what she’s doin’! She can’t sew me up!”

“Calm down, Daryl. She sews better than I do,” Hershel said.

Carol passed off the bandage to Daryl, letting him hold pressure on his shoulder with his good hand, while his bad hand kept pressure on his bad leg. She started to wash her hands, casting worried glances at the old veterinarian. “I’m happy to learn, but I’d rather practice making sutures on an orange or something. Not a person.”

“We’ve got more people than oranges.” Hershel lowered himself slowly back to the blanket, his bad knee obviously protesting. “I don’t know why I didn’t insist on this before. Daryl’s the one who needs patching up the most often, and you’re always hovering when he’s hurt. You might as well learn to fix him yourself.”

“Okay, but I should still practice somehow before I do real stitches, don’t you think?” 

“This _is_ practice. If you can ignore the cursing, Daryl’s the easiest one in the group to stitch. He doesn’t cry, and he doesn’t squirm. Getting him out of his clothes is half the battle, and you’re already the best at that.”

Carol glared, and Hershel just smiled, clearly pleased with his little joke. At least it shut Daryl up. He started fidgeting with the blanket, suddenly very interested in the forest beyond.

“Let’s do the shoulder first, son.” Hershel reached to help Daryl, his voice kind again. “If you unbutton a couple of buttons, you should be able to slip your arm out like you did last time.”

Abruptly, Carol realized why Hershel always worked on Daryl at the far edges of camp, even though the fire would provide better light. She averted her eyes, embarrassed to be contributing to his discomfort.

Daryl gritted his teeth and threw himself up to sitting, then practically ripped the buttons off his shirt taking it off. He flung it to the ground. “What?” He barked at Hershel, who was giving him a quiet, sympathetic look. “I got nothing you or her ain’t seen. Ain’t no _girl._ Not gonna cry bout gettin’ nekkid.”

“Of course not.” Hershel laid a clean blanket over Daryl’s good shoulder, wrapped it across him and around his waist. “Keep this on, though. It’s chilly, and blood loss and shock makes you more susceptible.” Behind Daryl’s back, Carol gave the old man a grateful smile as he tactfully draped their wounded friend from the prying eyes of the group.

“I’ll clean it first, right, Hershel? If you could just hold the flashlight, that would help.” Carol wet a clean cloth and dabbed antiseptic on it. The flashlight beam cut through the gloom as she reached to clean his shoulder, but Daryl dropped his bandage and grabbed her right hand before she could touch him.

“The hell? You’re all skinned up.” He frowned at her scraped knuckles.

“It’s fine.” She tried to pull her hand back but he didn’t let go.

“Ain’t fine. Who’d you have to punch?”

Carol winced, not looking forward to this conversation. But of course the brother of Merle Dixon would recognize the particular pattern of knuckles scraped from a fist fight.

Daryl looked murderously toward the main camp, but then faltered, apparently struggling to guess who in their group would do something bad enough that _Carol_ would punch them.

“Some poor fool tried to rob our Carol in a health food store.” Hershel chuckled.

Carol smiled sardonically. “Fought me over a box of quinoa, if you can believe it.” She scooted closer and started cleaning the blood and dirt away from his cuts.

“He _what_? Did he hurt ya?” Daryl grabbed her elbow, trying to hold her at arm’s length so he could check more closely for injuries.

“Would you stop?” She batted his hand away. “You’re bleeding all over me.” And down his arm and onto both blankets. Hershel held up the suturing needle, pointing out the way it was threaded for her to note for next time. She nodded, then said to Daryl, “Don’t worry. That knife you gave me punches just as well as it stabs.”

She leaned in and kissed his cheek.

He stuttered into silence and she slipped the needle in, taking the first stitch before he could recover.

Hershel chuckled. “See? You’re a natural. You could be a deal of help to Lori, too, when the time comes. You have the right temperament and you’re the only other one in the group who’s ever experienced childbirth.”

The thought tugged at Carol’s mind and she stitched quietly for a moment, forgetting the argument.

Daryl, however, did not. “Why the hell’d you punch him, not stab him?”

“He tried to take my quinoa, not my life.” She gave him a look. “I wasn’t going to _kill_ the man.”

“He coulda done a lot more than that.”

“Not really. He was pretty busy trying to hold the pieces of his nose together.” She turned to Hershel. “Goodness, you’re right. He _is_ easy to stitch. Do I need to do anything special at the end?”

“You’re finished already?” Hershel chuckled. “You’re a wonder. I didn’t have to tell you a single thing, you’ve watched me sew him up so many times. Tell you what, you get his pants off, then I’ll tell him about the gun and we won’t even have to give him a pain pill for the second round of stitches.”

“What _gun_?”

Hershel was dead on. Daryl was so busy cursing a blue streak at her about leaving her attacker with a weapon that she was finished with the stitches on his leg before he hardly noticed.

“May as well just give me the pants.” She held out her hands and wiggled her fingers when he went to pull his pants back up. “I need to sew them back together as well. Hershel, will you please get his spare pair from the motorcycle?”

As soon as Hershel left, she leaned down and took Daryl’s hand, and squeezed it, finally serious as she met his frantic eyes. “I’m fine, Daryl. I’m not just saying that so you won’t worry. He never laid a hand on me. You’re the one who went through a second-story window.”

He looked unhappy, but he squeezed her hand and finally looked away to examine the wound she’d just closed in his strong thigh. He nodded and threw the blanket over himself before he shimmied the rest of the way out of his pants.

“Good stitches,” he grunted. “Damn near better than the old man.”

She rinsed her hands in the bowl, an oddly full feeling taking over her chest and a smile playing around her lips. “Gotta be. Something tells me you’re going to give me a lot of practice.”

He was too quiet, so she looked back to check on him. He was propped up on an elbow, laying on his side with the blanket pulled up to cover everything below his chin. He studied her like she was a book and he’d just discovered there were words inside.

“Hershel’s right,” he said abruptly. “You can do a hell of a lot more than laundry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: I was trying to go to sleep one night and I heard Carol say in my head, “He fought me for a box of quinoa, if you can believe it.” And then she snorted. So that’s where this chapter came from. 
> 
> Next up, the story of where Daryl got his poncho!


	30. The Poncho

“What on earth could we possibly need from a tractor store?” Carol dropped her hands onto her hips, staring up at the storefront.

“Well, we need most everything,” Hershel said, tucking his hands into his pockets. “So it can’t hurt. We could even pick up a little seed, in case we can stake out a place with a garden this spring.”

Lori stared at him. “Why don’t we pick up some seat covers for a Rolls Royce while we’re at it? And a nice glaze, just in case we stumble across a ham?”

Daryl stopped prying at the front doors long enough to shoot an incredulous look at the waiting group. “You people kiddin’ me? Tractor store’s got damn near everything worth having. Tools, warm clothes. Maybe even food. Half of ‘em sell rifles. Ammo. Machetes. Boots. Tarps.”

“Okay, okay, Mr. John Deere,” Maggie said. “As soon as TV comes back, we’ll let you star in the tractor store commercials. Now would you just get the door open please?”

“Doors are glass,” Glenn said. “Why don’t you just break them? Nothing came out when you pounded anyway.”

Daryl leaned on his crowbar, his face twisting with the effort. “Ya ever seen a house rot out?” he said through his teeth.

Glenn glanced around, as if he expected the others to clue him in as to what he was missing. “Uh, no.”

“Long as the water can’t get in, it’s good. But you go shooting holes in the walls, bustin’ out windows, lettin’ the roof leak…ya get mold. After that, you only got a year or two ‘fore the structure starts to go.” Daryl backed up, leaning his hands on his knees as he caught his breath. “We ain’t got out of this little range all winter. Roads all blocked up, herds everywhere. If we’s stuck here, every house in this spot’s a house we might need ta live in someday.” He squinted over at Glenn. “Roof’s nice to have, when it rains.”

Carol turned her back on the tractor store, watching the open parking lot for walkers. This place was out on the edge of town, but there were always more walkers near towns. There were a few dead ones out by the curb, nearly hidden by the grass scraggling out of the little islands in the parking lot. It had already grown knee high and thick with weeds. By this time next year, the whole of Georgia would be a jungle.

The sharp rhythm of Rick’s cowboy boots thumped against the pavement and Carol turned around as he came back from scoping the backside of the building. “We’re still not in yet? Why don’t you break the door?”

“Why don’t you break the damn door?” Daryl chucked the crowbar at Rick’s boots, metal clattering against pavement. “Y’all gonna hold my dick for me next time I take a piss, too? Buncha goddamn backseat drivers.”

Carol sighed. “Rick, we just went over all of this. Just let him pry the door open. It never takes him more than ten minutes anyway. Everybody’s just hungry and impatient.”

Rick picked up the crowbar and jammed it into the seam of the door, but he didn’t catch the edge and as soon as he leaned on it, it popped out, sending him stumbling.

“Gimme that, ‘fore you hurt yourself.” Daryl snatched the crowbar back and crammed it into the door.

Rick’s beard twitched like he was trying to hide a smile, and he said something very low to Daryl that Carol only caught the last half of.

“—hold it for me the next time I take a piss, too?”

Daryl snorted, but his face lightened as he leaned into the crowbar. Rick laughed, and Carol smiled. She hadn’t minded Rick as much lately. He seemed a little more level-headed than he had toward the end at the farm. Maybe without the strain of Shane dogging his heels, he’d be a better leader.

Daryl passed the crowbar to Rick and loaded his crossbow. The regular crew of house-clearers stepped up behind them, but Rick stopped on the first step, shaking his head and making a face like he smelled something bad. “Well, it sure isn’t empty.”

“Walker must be stuck,” Daryl said. “Or somebody else finished one off in here. Don’t look like nobody’s been in here since the end, though. Place’s locked up tight.” He threw a glance back at Carol and she drew her pistol and turned her back to the store, watching the other approaches so nothing could surprise them while the men and Maggie were inside. She cleared houses with them sometimes now, had gone on a couple of runs. She still wasn’t exactly sure what side of that line she wanted to come down on, but it was nice knowing she could do her part, if the group needed her.

A few minutes later, they were in, and Lori and Carol grabbed plastic bags, scooping candy bars out of the racks by the registers.

“I call the Kit Kats!” Carl grinned at his mom. “And you can’t say I have to eat dinner before candy because we ain’t got no dinner.”

“Don’t have,” Lori corrected. “Ain’t isn’t a real word.”

“It’s real! Daryl says it all the time!”

Lori took a breath and Carol stiffened. Daryl had just disappeared down the aisle next to them and whatever Lori was about to tell her son about why he couldn’t talk like Daryl, she didn’t want him to overhear and be hurt by it.

“Daryl’s an adult, sweetie,” Carol broke in quickly. “He already went to school and learned about proper grammar, and now he makes his own choices about how he would like to speak. Just like adults have the choice to use swear words or not. But when you’re young, you learn the right way to do things, and that includes speaking correctly and not using inappropriate language. When you’re an adult, you can choose what type of language you prefer to use, just as Daryl has.”

“No fun allowed until you’re eighteen,” Carl grumbled. “I get it.”

“Plenty of candy, though.” Lori ruffled his hair. “At least this week. Promise me you’ll brush your teeth really good after you eat. There aren’t any dentists anymore.”

“Pliers on aisle nine,” Daryl drawled, appearing at the end of the aisle with the loaded crossbow leaned lazily against his shoulder. Carol’s heart gave a little skip, both at the long-legged, black-leather swagger of him, and the fact that he _had_ been close enough to listen. He didn’t look upset, though, so maybe her rambling save had actually helped.

“That’s not funny.” Lori gave him a narrow-eyed look.

“Weren’t no joke! You ever had a tooth go bad, you’d be wishin’ you had some pliers.” He swiped two sets of sunglasses off the rack, and Carol made a mental note to grab a couple more. His light eyes were painfully sensitive to the Georgia sun, but his sunglasses were always getting knocked off his face and broken. He turned and went down the next aisle.

“Did you find the walker?” Carol called after him.

“Owner was holed up in the back room,” Daryl said. “Gonna go take a better look, see what he had stashed. Hope that fucker opted out early, ‘fore he ate up all his food.”

“Daryl!” Lori snapped. “Honestly.”

“What? Just sayin’. Ain’t doin’ him no good one way or ‘nother, now.”

Lori shoved a full box of Salted Nut Bars into her bag. “Carol, I take back everything I said about you being a good influence on that man.”

Carol sent her an amused look. “I’m pretty sure all the good influencing is going the other direction. Though I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

There was a small sound from the aisle Daryl disappeared down, and she wondered if he’d been eavesdropping again. Then again, there wasn’t much he _didn’t_ hear.

Carl started punching buttons on the cash register, making ca-ching sound effects.

“Somebody gimme a hand back here,” Daryl called.

“Coming!” Carol left her bag with Lori, checked her pistol and knife to be sure the holsters were unsnapped, and ventured further into the dark store. As she got close to the back, the rear windows added illumination, and she stepped up behind where Daryl’s broad shoulders were blocking most of a doorway. Her eyes slid down his muscular back, but then she was distracted by the increasing stench.

“Lookit this!” He sounded very excited, so she forced herself to go forward, pinching her nose as she ducked around him. He was pointing at a dead body.

She choked. It had been dead and rotting for so long the brains strewn across the floor were a furry gray with something that might have been dust or mold, or both. Shiny black bug carcasses trailed out from them like gothic cupcake sprinkles. Carol blinked and tried to focus. “What?”

“Sumbitch’s got a Pendleton blanket.” Daryl took a step inside and started to tug on the blanket, but the corpse was rolled into the bottom half and he couldn’t get it free. “My grampa had one just like it. My old man got it outta his house after he died. Feel this.” He held up a corner of it toward her, rubbing it between his fingers. “Good wool, thick as hell. Warm. C’mon, help me move this body offa it.”

She choked and bile rose up her throat. “Daryl, no. Even if I washed it thirty times, that would never be sanitary.”

Maggie popped her head in the door behind them. “That’s disgusting,” she said flatly.

“Dude, if a body’s been on it, the fabric’s probably rotten,” Glenn said, his face hidden in a handkerchief, his eyes watering from the smell.

“Ain’t leavin’ behind a perfectly good blanket.” Daryl jerked his knife out of its sheath. “Buncha pussies.” He hacked away at the blanket, cutting away the section that wasn’t touching the body. Once he had it free, he folded it over, offered it to Carol again. “Feel. It’s warm.” She backed away, shaking her head, and he scowled. “Fine. Keep it fer myself then.”

“What are you gonna do with that rag?” Maggie grimaced. “It’s not even long enough to be a lap blanket.”

Daryl tipped his head, considered it, then stuck his knife through the center, jerking a ragged slit in the fabric.

Glenn made a small, confused sound, then Daryl popped his head through the opening, draping the blanket over his shoulders and looking pleased. “Poncho.”

Carol gagged a little. “At least let me wash it before you wear it. It smells something awful.”

“Hell, I’d rather be warm than smell pretty.” He caught sight of the expression on her face and frowned, then shrugged out of the poncho. “Fine. Wash it then, if ya want to so bad.”

Glenn burst out laughing, looking between Daryl and Carol. “That’s the first step, man. You look at her, start thinking about what she wants instead of what you want, and the next thing you know…” He made a sound like a cracking whip. “Never thought I’d see the day that Daryl Dixon—” He broke off when he saw the look on Daryl’s face.

“See me what?” He ducked around Carol and stepped up into Glenn’s face. “The fuck you talkin’ ‘bout?”

Glenn took a step back, cringing. “You know, I was going to go check and see if they had a…something. Over there.”

“Yeah, you best go see.” Daryl spat on the floor, glaring dangerously at the other man. “ _Way_ over there.”

“So what are you saying, Glenn, that a man who considers his woman’s feelings is pussy whipped?” Maggie planted her fists on her hips. “And what the hell is that supposed to mean, anyway? Because if you have to think about how you’re acting based on whether or not it gets you laid, probably you’re no kind of man to start with.”

Carol cringed and bit her lip to hold back a laugh, grabbing Daryl’s hand. He glanced at her just as Maggie hit her full-volume lecturing stride. Carol raised a finger to her lips, pantomiming quiet as she started to tiptoe away. Daryl took in her silent laughter, his lips quirking, too.

“Babe, you know that’s not what I—” Glenn stuttered behind them, and Daryl mimed cracking a whip.

Carol pulled him into the next aisle and then let go of his hand to slap playfully at his arm. “Don’t be mean,” she whispered through her laughter.

He dropped the poncho and hauled her in roughly with an arm around her waist, ducking his head. He hesitated, jerking to a stop before he connected. She pushed up onto her toes and met him halfway before he could overthink it, pressing her lips to his. As soon as she did, a little breath fell out of him and he kissed her hungrily, his other arm coming around her back. His tongue touched her lips tentatively and she moaned a little in her throat, her mouth falling open to him.

He’d been experimenting with french kissing more and more. It was strangely sexy, not knowing exactly what he was going to do next. Not all his experiments worked out well, but there was a raw earnestness to his kisses that struck her straight in the heart. She threaded her fingers into his hair, pressing close enough to feel the shiver that went through him when she traced her nails over his scalp. She slipped her other hand under his vest, flat against his chest.

He made a low grunting sound. It was one of his pleased ones, and a little aroused too. She loved how he forgot himself when he was touching or kissing her; loved the noises he made because they, too, were so excruciatingly honest. It was such a stark contrast to the games Ed used to play with her, trying to trip her up so he’d have an excuse to be angry.

Daryl made a longer, more rumbly sound and she pulled away, because that meant he was getting too turned on for the middle of the day. Especially with all the group nearby to see. She stole one more kiss, pressing it to the corner of his mouth. Then another, on his cheekbone. Then, because he was smiling, she dropped one more on his mouth before she finally stepped back, pulling his vest closed and snapping it to give her hands something to do while she caught her breath.

“You were right,” she said, patting his chest when she closed the final snap.

“Hmm?”

She looked up and grinned. “You _can_ find everything you need in a tractor store.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: After I wrote this, the lovely the_wd_caryl sent me an interview link where Norman Reedus says they gave him the poncho because it’s just easier to do all the movements for loading and shooting the crossbow without getting bound up in a coat. But apparently it was just a random thing he found and cut a hole in, so I got that part right!


	31. A Modest Proposal

“Ham.”

“Mashed potatoes. ’N butter.”

“Yes, with meatloaf and a big glass of milk.” Carol groaned. “ _Milk._ There’s probably not a cow left in the world, is there? Too slow.”

“Yogurt.”

She snorted. “You’re kidding me. Of all the foods you miss, you pick something college girls diet with?”

“It was creamy like nothin’ else. And not cold like ice cream, so it don’t hurt your teeth.”

Daryl sat back against his side of the truck bed, cleaning one gun while a loaded one waited on his right side. They’d all learned from Andrea’s little experience in the RV, when she had to take out a walker with a screwdriver. Nobody took all the guns apart at once to clean them anymore.

They’d also learned the best place to clean them was sitting in the bed of the truck. On the ground, things always rolled into the dirt, and doing it in the cars, pieces got lost under the seats. Plus, this way if they needed to take off in a hurry, they wouldn’t leave a single weapon behind.

Carol propped her feet on the wheel well next to him. “Seriously, though, are there any foods you actually miss? I mean, I’ve got so many food fantasies I feel like I’m losing my mind, but you never seem to notice what you’re eating one way or another.”

“That’s ‘cause everything you make’s good as hell. Specially when we got time for you to actually stew somethin’ up over the fire.” He lifted a rifle and squinted down the barrel to see if it was clean. She noticed he never pointed it her way, even when it was unloaded. “My mama died when I’s young, none o’ the rest of us could cook worth a shit. I ain’t never got picky ‘bout food.”

“Good thing, now days.”

“How do you do that, though?” He laid the gun into his lap and added a bit more oil to a rag. “I musta cooked squirrel stew twice a week after I got my bow when I’s a teenager. Never tasted nothin’ like you make it.”

Warmth curled through her, and she told herself she had no business getting aroused over a compliment to her squirrel stew.

“I’ve got a little stash of flour for thickener, and I tenderize the meat. Boil everything first and pick the bones out before I serve it, for extra flavor.” She shrugged. “Mostly it’s spices, though. Every house we stay at has spices and I’ve taken them all. Most of that stuff doesn’t grow in the States, so it’s the last of it we’ll ever see.” She concentrated on placing the spring back in an automatic pistol just right. She felt a little guilty at how many of the spices she’d used up on the nights when they could cook and not just open cans. But the group had so little to look forward to these days and even the canned food was better with a bit of spicing.

He fell quiet, the gun parts in his hands coming back together so quickly it looked like magic. When she was first learning, she’d had to slow his movements down so much that he kept making little aggravated grunts while he waited for her to catch up.

The memory drew her attention to the quality of his silence now, because it wasn’t one of his easy ones. Not an angry one, though. Heavier than that. She could scent it on the air now, like a shift in the weather. _Too much time together, not enough hobbies,_ she thought dryly.

“You gonna tell me what’s wrong or do I need to prod you a while first?” She slammed a full clip into the gun, put on the safety, and set it aside with the others she’d already finished.

He flicked an uneasy look across at her and she caught his gaze before he could pretend he hadn’t been doing it. She raised her eyebrows. He winced a little and she let her face soften. He sighed. Tipped his chin up to call her closer.

She flipped around, moving to sit on his side of the truck bed.

“Don’t tell nobody else.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You trying to piss me off, Dixon?”

His lip twitched. Almost a smile, but his eyes were still solemn. Worried. She hated how often he and Rick looked worried these days.

“Tryin’ to figure out how to cook mice.” His shoulders tensed.

“Seems like we should go for rats first, if it comes to that. They’re bigger and there are plenty of them running around the bushes near town.”

Daryl started paying a lot of attention to how he was wiping down the gun in his hand.

“What.” She said it flatly, not even bothering to make it a question.

He scowled.

She watched him for a second, turning it over in her head, then winced. “The squirrels. You bring them home skinned and cleaned sometimes, and sometimes _just_ cleaned.”

“Don’t tell Lori.”

“If the hunting’s that bad, you think _I’m_ going to tell Lori?”

“Not Rick neither.”

She sighed. “Why that man thinks we can still afford pride, I’ll never know.”

He kept cleaning the gun and after a second she reached over, stilling his fingers with hers until he looked up.

“You think it’ll get that bad?” she whispered, very quiet. “Mice bad?”

The crow’s feet at the edges of his eyes were very deep tonight, his eyes troubled. “Damn near that bad now. We’ve cleaned out mosta the houses we can get to. Animals hole up for winter. One’s that stay out get skinny by the end, like we’re gettin’. And walkers get damn near everything out there. Ain’t the coldest part of winter that kills ya. It’s that long damn bit right before spring when you keep thinkin’ it’s just about over, but it ain’t.”

“Is that why you keep running off right before dinner?” She frowned at him. Once she’d noticed what he was doing, she was careful to save his share and bring it to him, making a fuss over it so he knew she’d be offended if he didn’t eat.

He shrugged. “I’m better at being hungry than mosta these people. Used to how it makes your head feel funny. Merle used to say, it’s a drug like any other. Cheaper ’n most.”

She blew out a breath, letting her thumb stroke over the back of his hand just one slow sweep before she took it away.

“We can stew them,” she said. “Lots of tiny bones, not much meat, but we can boil what meat there is off, then pick out the skeleton. Just like a fish, it’ll come out easier once they’re cooked.” Her stomach pitched at the thought but she was very careful to keep it off her face.

Daryl took food more seriously than almost anything. Not being able to find food for even a single day got dangerously close to the difference between life and death. It was such a different world now, how it mattered in such a visible way if a man could provide for his people or not. And Daryl was very much a man.

Daryl’s shoulder relaxed against hers. “I can catch ‘em easy enough, but cleanin’ ‘em’s a pain. They’re so tiny. Not much meat, like ya said. Mostly, I can’t figure how to skin ‘em. So small.”

“And too much work,” she said. “It would take a lot of time every night and the more time we spend in camp, the more the walkers group up.”

“Think the hair would come off if we boiled ‘em, like feathers offa chicken?”

She shook her head, thinking. Picking up Lori’s revolver, she unloaded it, caging the bullets in one of the grooves of the truck bed before running the ramrod through the barrel. “Nair,” she said. “We need Nair.”

Daryl squinted at her. “What the hell’s Na-yr?”

“It’s this stuff you put on your legs if you don’t want to shave. Hair falls right off.”

“You’re fuckin’ with me.”

“You get me four walls and two hours, cowboy, and we can talk.” She winked.

He scowled, fidgeting with his rag. “About the Nair. I meant about—the hair really falls offa your legs?” He looked suspicious. “That safe to eat?”

“No idea. But if we use it to get the hair off the mice, then rinse them thoroughly, then we can probably stew them up like anything else.”

She finished with the revolver and held her hand out for Daryl’s oiled rag so she could wipe down the outside.

He handed it to her, but instead of letting go, he gripped her hand and pulled her in close, planting a kiss on her cheek so quick she wasn’t sure at first if he’d just lost his balance and bumped her with his face. Her mouth fell open.

His ears flamed red and he ducked his head, starting to growl some excuse about helping Rick as he scooted toward the tailgate.

“I love you.” The words tumbled out of her on an exhale, and she thought them so often that until she saw his reaction she wasn’t sure she said them out loud.

He froze dead in place. She grabbed the back of his vest and tugged him back over. She hadn’t meant to say it but sometimes it swelled up so big in her chest, it was only a matter of time until it spilled out. She pressed a kiss to his cheek, patting his thigh and handing him another gun to clean.

“For practicing cleaning mice in secret to keep us all alive,” she said, matter-of-fact and conversational as anything, because it was the easiest way for him to hear very emotional things. And maybe, just a little bit, because it might keep her from crying and making a total idiot of herself. “And for stealing kisses and making me feel like a pretty teenager again. For a lot of things.” She shrugged, and started to smile. “I just like you, that’s all.”

She plucked the gun oil from where he’d propped it against the wheel well.

He just stared at her, parts of his face twitching as he nearly went into one expression, then a different one. He cleared his throat. Cleared it again.

“I know,” she said. “You don’t have to say it.” She reloaded the revolver and looked pointedly at the pile of dirty guns still sitting beside him. “You’re falling behind, Dixon. You really want to tell everybody a girl could clean guns faster than you?”

“Ain’t behind.” He started taking apart the pistol she’d given him while she worked on the rifles.

“Uh-huh.” She smiled at him, letting the expression warm her whole body. “You just keep telling yourself that.”

He had the pistol apart before she even tore her gaze off his high, surprisingly sophisticated cheekbones. “There’s a prison,” he said gruffly. “Off that side road, the one with the Honda hatchback and the branches ‘cross it.”

He said it so fast it took an extra second or two to sink in. “What? Why didn’t you say so, back when Rick asked you if there was one near here?”

He chewed on his lip. “Didn’t want to. Not with everybody lookin’ at me like I’d be the one to know.”

“Okay.” She understood that, though honestly, for the possibility of a safe haven, couldn’t he get past that sometime sooner than _now_? It had been weeks, maybe months, since their conversation about already-fortified places they could hole up.

“I never was in it,” he said quickly. “Merle was, though. Time or two.”

She bumped him with her shoulder. Not gently. “Did I say you were?”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, either.” She frowned at him. “What on earth have I ever said to make you think I’d assume you were a criminal, Daryl?”

“Said I’s sorry!”

She passed him the gun oil when he started to look around for it. “Rick needs to think it’s his idea. Especially after the argument you guys had about fortified places. Since Shane, he’s been so nervous about anybody questioning his leadership.”

“Might not be able to clear a prison. Lotta people in there.”

“But if they didn’t get out of their cells before the turn, it will be easy as shooting fish in a barrel.” She fell silent as the reality of that analogy sank in. Nothing about the idea of killing convicts who’d died and turned in cells sounded appealing. “Maybe they weren’t infected. At the beginning, maybe we weren’t all infected, and if you died, you wouldn’t turn.”

“Maybe.”

She sighed.

“Worth a try,” Daryl said. “I’ll scout up ahead next couple days, tell Rick we’re blocked off by a herd we gotta go ‘round. Funnel him right by the prison so he gets a nice, long look at it. Might be overrun or burnt down, might not be. If it ain’t smart, we won’t do it. He can make the call.”

“It’s worth a try.” She met his eyes, anxiety pricking her at the possibility of mouse stew. But even with everything they had to fear, it was easier to smile when she was looking at Daryl. “If anybody can clear out a whole prison, it’s us.” She was surprised at how certain she sounded.

She was even more surprised to realize she really believed it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Remember how I said the I love you for this fic was really weird? Mouse stew and Nair, baby. We got romance with a capital R up in here.  
> 


	32. What If

Carol was half asleep on Daryl’s back when they pulled in. Wasn’t the first time. The warmth of his back through his poncho and the rumble of the motorcycle just put her head in that deep quiet place she used to find, skipping rocks as a child. When she started to doze, he felt it in her arms loosening around his waist and he’d squeeze her thigh to wake her, make her ride in one of the cars if he thought she was too tired. But she never felt safe enough to sleep when she was in the cars.

The house they found was a new one, out on the edge of the circles they’d been circumscribing all winter. They should have already been at the prison Daryl had told her about but they’d been cut off by a real herd instead of the fake ones they’d been telling Rick about to nudge him toward where they wanted to go. Still, even with taking the long way around they should be there soon.

Daryl put the kickstand down as she unsnapped her pistol’s holster, keeping an eye on the woods. She got of the bike, her numb feet making her stumble a little. Daryl caught her, his chest warming her shoulder as he scanned the edge of the woods, too. Studied the burnt-up chicken coop and boarded over windows of the house. The tree that had fallen on the woodshed and the soaked wood under the ruined roof.

Carol grimaced. “So much for a fire tonight.” She shivered, and then tried to hide it. Spring was getting closer and it was warm enough during the day now that she could strip out of her coat. But at night, the damp cold still seeped into her bones like after all these months of winter, her skin was too thin to keep it out.

Daryl scuffed his hands down her arms, but it didn’t do much to cut the chill.

“Hey,” he grunted, and Rick turned around. “Y’all handle clearing this’n? Gonna go up the way a bit, get some wood.”

“We just sayin’ that straight out now?” Maggie dusted her hands on her pants as she hopped out of the truck. “Personal maintenance breaks?”

Daryl stared at her for half a second. “Wh—I ain’t—”

“Is that what happened to the batteries out of my flashlight?” Carol interrupted. “Maggie, I told you, batteries are sacred.”

“I’ll tell you what’s sacred is my private time with—” Maggie began, and Rick waved a hand.

“No arguing until after we clear the house.” He turned to Daryl. “Might as well stay and help us clear. That axe we’ve got is too dull from walkers to cut down a night’s worth of wood in forty-five minutes.”

“Ain’t gonna cut it down. Gonna take it offa that house next door.”

Rick was already stuffing more bullets in his pockets. “It’s Georgia. What are the chances two houses’ll have a fireplace? No, Daryl. It isn’t worth the time to check or you having to clear the house yourself to check.”

“Man, you think I’m fuckin’ blind or what?” His chest went out, and the red in his ears from Maggie’s dirty joke transferred straight into his cheeks.

“That house had three chimneys,” Carol said, checking to make sure the clip of her gun was full and the fastening on her knife sheath was open. “They’ve got to have a big stockpile of wood for that and it would be outside, so we won’t have to clear the house.”

Rick and Daryl both looked at her.

Daryl said, “I thought you was nappin’.”

She smiled at him. “I’m a woman. We have perpetually cold hands, and a sixth sense when it comes to fireplaces.”

“Okay,” Rick relented. “Can’t be that many walkers inside this one or we would have heard them already. Hurry before you lose the light, but at least take somebody to watch your back.”

Daryl looked at her, tipped his chin toward the neighboring house.

Her brow creased. “ _Me_?”

“You’ve cleared a house or two. Why not?” Hershel said, his shotgun leaned back against his shoulder. “Besides, if he manages to rip open some new part of his body fetching firewood, you can stitch it up and save me an evening’s labor.”

Lori snickered, leaning against the truck and rubbing her belly. It seemed to grow an inch a day at this point even though they’d run out of canned food yet again. She couldn’t believe how much canned food it took to feed a group of ten for even a week. The stockpile Ed had at the turn hadn’t been a drop in the ocean against what a person really needed to survive.

“Ha ha, old man,” Daryl said sardonically. “Coulda cleared that house twice, the time we’ve spent jawing out here.” He raised a hand and grunted at T-dog, who threw him the truck keys so they’d have a way to bring the wood back.

Carol caught up with him as he got to the truck. “You invite me along just to give me an excuse to get away from Lori and Maggie’s bickering?” she asked.

Daryl’s head swiveled as he shot a glance at her, frowning. “Nah.”

She blinked, processing that as she climbed into the passenger side. She’d started to help fight off walkers when needed, and she’d taken care of that robber and her two would-be kidnappers, but even Carl was clearing more houses and going on more runs than her. It’s not like she was A-team material. Though maybe Daryl thought she could be, if he was trusting her to watch his back.

She pulled on the seatbelt out of long habit, even though they were only going half a mile. She’d always thought of herself as being part of the caretaking part of the group: making their food half-edible, making sure people had clean clothes and dry feet and keeping up with the hours of water boiling to make drinking water every day. But Hershel had been training her more about medicine and first aid, and Daryl had been inviting her on some runs and house clearings. Soon she wouldn’t have time to do all the different jobs and she’d have to pick one.

It was an unsettling feeling, because Carol had never had many choices. She’d always just made the best of what she was given.

Carol sighed and tried to focus on the forest outside the window, trying to gauge the walker concentration in this area. She was too tired to think about all that tonight. Too hungry to concentrate for long anyway.

The truck was still warm from driving all day. She rubbed her hands against her thighs, not aware of how cold they’d gotten on the motorcycle until just now. The forest outside was quiet, just lengthening, tree-latticed shadows. With a CD playing softly from the radio, it felt a little like she and Daryl were just driving home from a friend’s house, back in the old world when they’d return to rooms golden with electricity and heat, refrigerators full of fresh food.

She stole a glance at him. His wrist was propped over the steering wheel, faint squint lines expanding from the edges of his eyes as he focused on the road. His mouth was soft, though, relaxed and unaware of her scrutiny.

He was handsome.

A bolt of warmth hit her from deep inside her chest and she blinked once, twice. She was so used to seeing him; his face was just part of her daily landscape. For as much as something in her seemed to orient to him like a weathervane, it had been a long time since she’d seen him with the objective eyes of a stranger. His hair was getting a little longer and it just drew even more attention to his sharp, arresting features, those quick eyes.

For just a second, she let herself imagine that he was her husband. That his ring circled her finger and this truck belonged to them. That he was driving them home to their safe, warm life and a bed they shared every night.

Longing took her so hard her head whirled, and Daryl chose that moment to duck a glance at her, looking twice when he realized she’d been staring. He swiped at his cheek. “Got something on m’ face?”

She popped her seatbelt and scooted across the bench seat, then pressed a kiss into his cheek. Her throat ached so the pain almost overshadowed the brush of pleasure in her lips where they touched his cheekbone.

He hit the brakes too hard, spinning the wheel as he nearly missed the turn. The wheels bounced as they hit the dirt driveway of the house. He coughed, shooting a glance at her as she settled back into her seat. “ ’S wrong?”

She concentrated on breathing, trying to get that fist of longing to turn loose of her throat so she could be ready to fight walkers in a second. “Nothing. Just…sometimes I can’t help but wish that things were different.”

His fingers twitched on the steering wheel. “With you ’n me?”

“Not with us.” She pulled another breath and let it out slowly. “Just with everything else.”

He parked and turned off the engine, his fingers playing through the keys for a moment after the music was gone. The soft jangle of brass keys filled the cab of the truck as she stared out the front windshield at the empty house. One window was broken, and soggy curtains striped with brown stains caught raggedly in the glass shards. There was a laundry basket tipped onto its side on the front porch.

Carol did not want to go out there. Didn’t want to leave this warm bubble of the old world to face the cold and try to steal wood chopped by people who were probably dead and still haunting these woods somewhere nearby.

“Hey.”

She turned her head and he was watching her intently, like he wanted to say something.

“Be a’right.”

She nodded, because she wanted him to feel better, even though she didn’t know if he was right. And even though she could tell that hadn’t been what he really wanted to say.

“Burnin’ daylight.” He grabbed his crossbow and hopped out of the truck.

She took an extra second, but it did nothing to brace her so she just opened the door. Daryl had already made it up onto the porch and peered in the front window. He came down again just as fast, the red rag swinging from his back pocket as he flashed her a quick hand signal and swung around the side of the house.

The thing about Daryl’s hand signals was that they were never the same twice. But you could always just sort of _tell_ what he wanted. Like his will was a shift in the air around you.

She followed him around the house, her knife gripped loosely in her hand. She tried to listen to the forest the way he’d taught her but she kept hearing that CD from the truck. Creedence Clearwater Revival.

It’d been weeks since she heard music, felt warmth from anything but Daryl’s body or a fire she’d lit herself. She didn’t know how the people in the cars stood it, popping in and out of the civilized world every day. At least on the motorcycle, there was no lying to yourself about the way things were. Out there, the walkers were close enough to touch as she roared on by.

They rounded the backyard, the light turning pink from the sunset now. The yard was overgrown with shin-height grass and scattered with lumps of useful objects that made it look like somebody had had to escape fast. She spotted an overturned milk crate full of bottled water and made a note to grab that when they left.

“There,” she said, pointing to the tarped woodpile between two trees. “Maybe we can fill that milk crate with wood to carry it back and forth.”

“Fuck that. Just drive the truck back here. _Don’t move_!”

Her limbs jerked to a halt as the familiar whoosh of an arrow sung by her, close enough to ruffle a breeze through her short hair. She whirled with her knife up to see one walker slumping to the ground and a huge one behind it: maybe three hundred pounds and a head taller than Daryl. Moaning registered somewhere from the trees out to her right.

Daryl grabbed her arm and spun her, trading places. “You get the little un’s,” he said, shouldering his crossbow because he couldn’t reload it in time, and reaching for his knife.

She caught her balance and tried to orient her back to him so nothing could sneak up between them. Two walkers headed her way: a teen girl in a bullseye red swimming suit, and a gray-haired man whose sagging jowls matched the polyester bagginess of his McDonald’s uniform. Carol darted to the side of the teenager, all that grayed skin exposed to the cold making her shiver in sympathy. She stabbed up under the ear of the teen walker before she could spin and bite. The moment when the knife hit its deepest point seemed to stretch and sink into Carol’s bones.

That wasn’t a beach swimming suit the walker wore: that was a competition one. Like even at her young age that girl had once had goals. Carol hoped she’d gotten to achieve some of them, that maybe there was a trophy or a medal back home in her room to mark the years before.

Then again, what did it matter, now?

Carol ripped the knife out, forcing herself to calculate her angle on McDonald’s Uniform. She supposed he wouldn’t mind the blood that would ruin that ugly uniform. He probably hadn’t cared for it anyway. She shook off the morbid thoughts, deliberately keeping her gaze away from his nametag and on the dark drops of rusty-stained drool smearing his lips as he reached for her.

 _Away from the arms._ Daryl had always said to attack from the side or the back.

A choked grunt came from behind her. She dodged and sprinted a few steps away from McDonald so she could take a second to look, because that sound had _not_ come from a walker.

A huge lump lay in the waving grass, and Daryl was nowhere in sight. She dodged the reaching hands of McDonald’s Uniform again, darting closer to where the grass thrashed around next to the giant, fallen walker.

At first, when she saw a cell phone in Daryl’s hands, her brain glitched and she lurched with dizziness like she couldn’t quite remember where she was. Then she saw the empty cell phone clip on the walker’s belt and the blood that ran down the glass screen, and realized Daryl was cramming it into the eye of the walker that pinned him to the ground. Its teeth gnashed inches from his face. Daryl’s right arm and knife were stuck somewhere beneath the massive body and when the cell phone proved too wide to fit into the eye socket, Daryl ripped it out and stuffed it into the walker’s mouth, using the electronic device to shove those dangerous teeth away from his face.

A hand dug into Carol’s arm, the fingers bruisingly hard. _Ed._

She turned and stabbed, furious at the part of her mind that kept getting mired in nostalgia. Her knife went through the saggy cheek of the walker. Metal scraped off its teeth with an awful sound, and she shoved it away, annoyed beyond measure that it was butting in when Daryl needed her help.

With the extra second that bought her, she bent and slammed her knife up beneath the ear of the walker pinning Daryl. The metal rings of the hilt bruised her fingers but kept her grip firm despite the awkward angle.

The McDonald’s walker pounced on her when she was still on the ground and she used one of the moves Daryl had showed her to shove the off-balance body to the side. McDonald’s stumbled and fell like a drunk, and she crammed the knife into its temple.

The sounds didn’t match up though: she kept hearing moaning even as the walker went still. Daryl’s cursing got louder and more breathless as he struggled with the dead weight atop him. Carol shifted her grip on her knife and grabbed the walker by the back of his shirt, which tore away as soon as she lifted.

Daryl shouted at her but she didn’t quite catch the words amidst the croaking moans of more walkers. The female in front wore knee-high heeled boots. It fell every time it took a step, then dragged itself up again, its miniskirt so twisted the original cut of the skirt was entirely lost. The next one was a child, barely nine with a scraped knee like it had just fallen off a bicycle. The tallest wore a plaid shirt, an identical blue tweed to one Rick had and for an instant, she wondered if this trio had been a family. If they’d lived here in this house and they’d never wandered far.

They’d bite Daryl. He was still pinned and she didn’t think she was strong enough to get him free in time, plus with all his yelling they were headed straight for him. She jumped over the big fallen walker and went to work, dodging grasping hands to stab the tall plaid-shirted male. Blood poured out onto the collar of that familiar shirt and she bit back bile. If there were this many walkers here, was Rick okay? Would he shield Lori in time? The quicker his wife’s belly grew, the more it set her off-balance and she fell more and more often when she tried to run.

The child snatched at the hem of her shirt, the way Sophia always had when she wanted attention. Carol jumped back with a little cry, catching movement out of the corner of their eye. Were there more coming?

“Stab it, goddamn it Carol! Ain’t a kid ain’t nothin’ kill it _now_!” Daryl had dragged half his torso from under the walker but his right arm was still stuck and his unloaded crossbow lay just out of reach.

She turned on the smallest walker, her stomach clawing up into her throat. Something caught at her ankle and she looked down to see the high heeled walker with both hands wrapped around her calf. Chipped, purple-painted nails gleamed with tiny rhinestones in the sunset light as the thing pulled her leg toward its mouth with a guttural, hungry grumbling.

Fear slammed through her veins and the little walker took hold of her arm. She grabbed it by the hair and slammed it down toward the walker on the ground. Their heads collided with a surprisingly loud crack of bone but didn’t break.

“Look out!” Daryl hollered but they were both still alive and she couldn’t look away for a second with their teeth this close. She jammed the knife into the child’s forehead and as soon as she felt the resistance of fresh bone, her heart fumbled.

This wasn’t a child who had died in that first wave of the turn. He was a survivor. He had stuck it out through the hunger and cold just like her. Maybe with these people, or maybe with his family miles away from here. Maybe his family was still alive.

She tried to pull her knife out, Daryl’s voice spurring her on, but it was stuck fast. As much as she didn’t want to, she yanked out her gun. Her thumb went to the safety without even thinking about it, her finger already pulling back on the trigger.

She didn’t see if her bullet struck the high-heeled walker because weight smashed into her back and she fell forward. Cold, rotten breath touched the back of her neck and the smell of decay was all around her as she landed on the bodies of the walkers she’d just killed. She squirmed to turn over but then she realized how pointless that was. Instead, she bent her elbow and thrust her gun back over her shoulder, the distinctive click of teeth against metal ringing out in the instant before she pulled the trigger.

“Get up get up!” Daryl shouted.

She shoved, every part of her cringing as her bare hands touched dead flesh.

A staggering form reeled toward her. She fumbled to get her gun up, but then a crossbow bolt punched through its face. Her eyes stuck on the black fletching she’d watched Daryl put on last week, and then the walker crumpled.

She spun in a circle, knees bent and pistol ready, most of a clip still left to burn. The sound would draw more. She could detect movement out in the growing darkness, but nothing within five paces. She shoved the pistol into her holster and grabbed the arm of the walker on top of Daryl’s legs. Daryl pushed his recovered crossbow up under its armpit, giving her extra leverage to roll it off him, though its shoulder joint popped and cracked out of place at the last second and she let it go with a grimace.

Daryl rocketed to his feet, rammed back his bowstring and threw another bolt in before grabbing her arm. “C’mon!”

“My knife!”

“Later.” He drew her toward the garden shed next to the tarped wood, and bashed the padlock off its weak hasp with the butt of the crossbow.

With the moans of walkers echoing from the forest all around them, he hauled her inside the shed and slammed the door behind them.


	33. Ain't Romantic

“The gunshots will draw in more,” Carol gasped as Daryl closed them into the dark garden shed. They’d killed all the walkers in the yard, but she could hear more close by and she’d had to fire her pistol more than once.

“If they can’t see us, they’ll just keep on going,” Daryl said.

Something rattled and thumped, like he’d thrown something in front of the door, then a little flashlight came on. He wrapped his red rag over it to muffle the light so it wouldn’t carry through the sheet metal walls of the shed.

He dropped his loaded crossbow to the ground and reached for her. “Ya hurt? Ya bit?” His urgent fingers pulled her collar away from her neck, swiped blood off her forehead.

“I’m not. I’m okay. They didn’t get me.” _God_ there had been so many. It only sank in now. She’d fought—how many? That little family of three? No, five. Actually, six, because of the one who’d had Daryl pinned. Seven, with the one that had attacked her from behind and she’d shot over her shoulder. Plus the man Daryl shot off her and the first one, so nine. She could hear more moaning from somewhere nearby and prayed they stayed away from the house where the rest of the group was.

Daryl let out a guttural sound and his head fell to her chest, his hands gripping too tightly over her sharp hipbones.

“Hey,” she murmured, still rattled but trying to soothe him. “Hey, we’re okay.”

His hands slid under her shirt, his thumbs sweeping like he needed to feel more of her skin at once, his forehead pressed almost painfully against her breastbone as he gulped air.

“I couldn’t get to ya. Like m’ dream.” His shaking hands swept over her belly, onto her back, pulling her closer into his body with his wrists getting bound up in her clothes. She didn’t ask what dream, because they all had that dream. All the damn time.

“Shh…” The sound she made was just a hum, but when he turned his face so his cheek lay against her chest, locking her against him, she knew he could hear it. She stroked her hands down the chilly leather of his vest, still damp from the grass.

Then his hands stopped, jerked like he’d realized they were beneath her shirt. He lifted his head. “ ‘M sorry. Didn’t mean—”

She shook her head. “I get it.”

She craved it, too. In the part of her that leaned closer to the fire, that made her lids fall closed when she tasted a fresh cup of coffee. There were some things that were just universal.

The zipper to her coat made a soft shhh sound as she pulled it down and dropped it to the floor.

“Don’t. If we need to run—”

“I’ll run without them. This is more important.” She shucked the hunter-orange fleece vest she’d scavenged from the tractor store, and shed her henley. Then she caught Daryl’s wide hands and pressed them to the skin of her waist. He inhaled and buried his head into the curve of her neck. His whiskers tickled against the kiss he left there.

His palms roamed her whole back, up her shoulders and down her arms. Around her waist and over her belly button. It was the boldest he’d ever been but it also wasn’t like he was trying to seduce her. It was more like he was clutching the memory of having her whole against the day when she might no longer be so. She kissed his temple and loved him all the more desperately for caring.

When his hands bumped the band of her bra and stumbled to a stop, she caught them and pressed them higher, her back arching her nipples against his palms. He groaned a little, deep in his throat, and lifted his head to kiss her.

Everything narrowed to the cold of metal against her shoulder blades, the slick leather of his vest against her chest, his tongue clumsy and so desperate against hers. His belt buckle caught at the button of her pants and she reached without thinking, jerking his belt open. He grunted and his hips snapped forward. She hitched a thigh up around him, straining at the awkward angle but needing the friction of having him closer.

Metal crashed at their backs.

Carol flinched away from the wall and he swung her toward the inside of the shed. They both froze and listened to the walker pawing at the wall, moaning, then just grumbling as the grass rustled and it stumbled away, still searching for the source of the gunshots from earlier.

Carol tilted her head back, seeking his kiss again, but he pulled away and grabbed her shirt off the ground. “Shouldn’t.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “What, because there’s a walker? I mean, don’t hold your breath, Dixon.”

She reached for him again. He let her pull him in close, but there was tension in every muscle now. She laid her head defeatedly against his chest, trying to will away the heat in her panties. God forgive her, at least the shed had a little privacy and for a second she’d hoped…

“Who knew?” She sighed. “Daryl Dixon needs more romance than a backyard shed. I’ll do better next time, Pookie.”

“Stop.” He hugged her back, though. At least a little.

“I should have guessed, actually. You’re the most romantic man I’ve ever known.”

He scoffed out a breath, trying to push her away.

“You are!” She hung onto his back, not ready to give up the chance for at least a hug in privacy. Especially when the texture of him was all rough-scratchy wool and smooth leather against her bare torso. “What do you think romance is, anyway?”

“ ‘Nnoying the shit outta everybody, far as I can tell from Glenn and Maggie.”

Carol snuck a hand under his shirt to give him a light pinch. “It’s caring about knowing somebody enough to know what would make them happy. When I used to watch the Lifetime Channel after Ed went to sleep, I used to think it was candles, jewelry, stuff like that, but that’s empty. We have candles every night these days and you can have all the jewelry you want since nobody much bothered to loot that.”

She nuzzled her cheek against his vest.

“It’s how you let me sleep with my hand on your crossbow. When you got me a knife that couldn’t slip out of my hand.” She pulled back just enough to tilt her head at him. His features were even more interesting in the sharp shadows of the shed. “I’m going to have to figure out how to be more romantic to you. Too bad I can’t just order more crossbow bolts off Amazon.com.”

The corner of his mouth softened a little, like he wanted to laugh. “That’d be real nice,” he admitted.

She let her hand sneak further under his shirt, stroking the warm skin of his side because she still wasn’t sure if he was okay with her touching his back. “Seriously, though. What would be romantic for you?”

He made a dismissive sound. “Place to lay my head where I could sleep without one eye open.” He tightened his arms around her. “With a roof, so your teeth’d stop chattering for once. That’d be pretty damn roman’ic, there. Maybe some good fences so we can get a minute alone without me worrying ‘bout if the rest of the group got all bit up while we’s gone.”

She nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

He did snort a laugh at that. “An’ a million bucks and new tires for the bike, huh?” He handed over her shirt. “Getting cold.”

She scowled, snatching up the henley. “I wouldn’t be, if _somebody_ was keeping me warm.”

“Gotta get that wood back, check on the group,” Daryl said, but his voice was distracted.

She focused on untangling her clothes, but as she zipped her vest, she realized he was absolutely still, watching her. She looked up and in the dim, red-tinted glow of the flashlight, his eyes were fastened so intently on her that a little arrow of tension darted down through her. “What?”

He blinked, cleared his throat, and then planted his feet a little wider. “I wanted to— I want ya— Wanted to ask if ya—”

“Whatever you wanted,” she said dryly, “it doesn’t look like talking was on the menu.”

He gave her a look. She gave it right back.

“Ain’t good at this stuff,” he muttered.

“Well, thank goodness.” She crossed her arms. “Lord knows we don't need one more thing you're good at to make the rest of us look bad.”

He snatched up his crossbow off the ground, checked the string, checked the bolt, slung it on his back. “Never mind.”

She touched his arm and when he looked at her, she tilted her head. Not talking. Not pushing. Just giving him the time he needed to sort out his thoughts because Daryl was a man who needed miles of space in order to be himself.

“I want ya,” he spat out.

Her eyes widened, and he blushed dark.

“Not like that. Want you to be with me. If ya want. Be m’ girl.”

“Yes.” The word burst out of her, and then a smile melted across her face. “Yes, that’s what I want. I thought you knew that. I wasn’t waiting on you to ask. I…to me, we’re already together. Always have been, in a way.” Her thumb swept over his arm where she held onto him. “But it’s nice to be asked.”

She looked down at their feet, her toes turned slightly in and his bigger feet set wide like they were standing guard over hers.

“I didn’t think I needed that,” she said, almost shyly, “that I’d want that. I guess I did.”

“Know it’s a lot to ask. Like ya said. Askin’ somebody to take you on for good. However y’ are. Specially in this world. Specially me.” He chewed on his lips. “I know I ain’t no prize. But I think…”

She’d taken a breath to refute him but when he trailed off, she couldn’t bear to interrupt whatever he’d worked so hard to say to her.

“I think I got better from knowin’ ya. And half that time, I wasn’t even tryin’. Just happened. I think if I’m tryin…” He stopped and bit his lip harder, straightened until he stood taller. “I won’t make it hard on you, being with me. If you want to. I’ll make it easy as I can make it.”

She laid a hand on his chest, feeling how fast his heart was thumping even through his jacket. “Didn’t realize your talents included making romantic speeches…” she murmured.

His face closed up, started to darken.

“Not joking,” she broke in quickly. “It’s romantic because I can tell you mean what you say. It…makes a difference.”

A gunshot cracked in the distance and Daryl looked up. “Sheriff’s coming,” he muttered. More shots rang out. Spaced, like whoever it was still had plenty of time to aim.

Carol cupped his cheek, drawing his face back down to hers and kissing him slowly, sweetly. She wanted to remember this moment.

“Who would have thought?” she mused when she pulled back, drinking in the haziness of his blue eyes. “That I’d save you from a walker, or that you’d talk about your feelings.”

He scowled. “Ain’t talkin’ ‘bout feelings. Ya said a girl liked to be asked, that’s all. So I asked.”

“And I answered.” Her fingers tightened on the back of his neck and she locked eyes with him for one more second, even though the gunshots were drawing closer and they needed to go. “Remember that. You gave me a choice, Daryl Dixon, and I chose you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: BTW, I am STILL swooning over 7x10. What a great episode. I’ve never wanted a big screen TV before (I watch on my 13 inch laptop) but that episode made me really want a bigger screen so I could properly appreciate the facial nuances of NR and MMB’s incredible acting.
> 
> This chapter (of the shed not being “romantic enough” for Daryl because what’s romantic to him is safety) and the next chapter (at the prison) are the scenes that I wrote this whole fic for. I hope you enjoy them.


	34. A Place to Sing

As Carol watched, Rick stalked the prison yard fence around their new home, and Daryl paced an overturned bus, watching from his higher vantage point for any danger Rick might have missed.

Their men might be still on edge, but as she bent to stir the stew, Carol hadn’t felt this good in months. She hadn’t realized how tensed she’d been against the constant reach of walker hands until the space of the prison lawn expanded out around her. Yards and yards empty of danger so that even if she closed her eyes, nothing could hurt her.

Her back was to Daryl right now and not once had she felt the itch to check and make sure nothing was creeping up on his blind side while he was busy watching hers. Instead, she took a little longer serving the stew than she needed to, because she could feel his eyes on her and her backside was looking pretty good these days, what with all the hiking and running they ended up doing. There was just enough light left in the sky that if he were of a mind to, he could appreciate that fact thoroughly from his high perch.

Then again, he was still Daryl, so he’d probably blushed and turned away. She sighed and straightened with his bowl in her hand, then defiantly added an extra half-scoop of stew to the bowl. He’d worked hard today, hauling off walker bodies, and they wouldn’t even have meat to thicken the stew if it weren’t for him.

Finding the prison had worked just as they’d hoped. They scouted up ahead, and reported about invisible herds to Rick until he routed them onto the roads they needed. But even once they got there, he had ignored all the prison signs until Daryl had to take him “hunting” on a railroad track that ran right by the jail to get him to see the opportunity in front of them. As if Rick had ever been any help at all when it came to hunting.

Of course, once he’d glimpsed the penitentiary yard, Rick’s strategic mind took over and he instantly devised a workable plan for clearing it. Their group had worked as smoothly as any military unit, claiming it for themselves before the sun even drooped to the horizon that night.

Carl came up beside her. “Can I fill a bowl for Dad before everybody else splits it up?”

“Course you can, sweetie,” she told him. Rick had picked up on Daryl’s trick of disappearing right before dinner to avoid the inevitable arguments and Lori’s guilty looks when he forced her to take all of her share and half of his.

It made Carol indignant. As if she wouldn’t make sure Lori was taken care of. They’d been doing their Lamaze practice together twice a day, and Carol had fought a freaking burglar hand to hand to bring back those folic acid supplements for her. She always made sure Lori had the biggest share to eat, even without the men sacrificing food they needed almost as badly.

“I’m just going to take supper up to Daryl,” Carol said. “God knows he’ll probably be up on that bus all night, as if those walkers could chew the fence down.”

Maggie laughed. “Right? He’s been more twitchy in here than he was back when we didn’t _have_ a fence.”

Carol smiled and shook her head, but Maggie’s comment tickled something in the back of her mind. She put it aside to mull over later and walked swiftly toward the bus so the stew wouldn’t be too cold by the time she got there.

They’d been too busy today for him to hunt, but she’d been having some success with salting meat so it would keep for a day or two, then letting most of the salt come off to make a sort of broth in the stew. Plus she added lots of pepper, which tended to cover up those first hints of oddness when meat was just starting to turn, but before it was old enough to make you sick. The longer they were on the road, the longer she could stretch the rations before their stomachs rebelled. They were getting tougher. Though Daryl was still the only one with a gut strong enough to eat raw meat. He’d offered to share his owl earlier, and everybody had turned him down. Though if Rick hadn’t come in and thrown his hissy fit, she was pretty sure nobody would have refused a share of Carl’s canned dog food.

She stepped through the open emergency exit door of the bus that lay on its side, tiptoeing across the windows and hoping they were pressed tightly enough to the ground that they wouldn’t break under her weight.

She understood Rick’s outburst over the dog food. He was grouchy when he was hungry just like the rest of them, but he pressed all that irritation down quiet and deep so it only came out in his movements. They were sharper, seething with a dangerous strength that wasn’t entirely under his control. When he was like that, he moved like Ed. Which made Hershel press his lips together and Beth roll her eyes, but it made Daryl flinch.

On those days, he always oriented himself so Rick was never out of his sight.

Carol didn’t even think Daryl knew he was doing it. It was just buried deep in who they were, both of them. Because it made Carol flinch, too. She knew Rick well enough to know he’d never raise a hand to Lori or the rest of them, but something in her body didn’t know that. And the closer they got to Lori’s time, the meaner Rick moved. It was as if the man in him recognized his woman needed shelter and he was chewing his own legs off with the frustration of not being able to give it to her. She thought he’d be better tonight with the fences around them, but instead he stalked back and forth, one eye on that big prison building like it was a giant, meaty steak.

Yes, she understood why Rick lost his temper. But she didn’t have to like it.

She pushed the bowl of stew up through the ripped off door to the top of the bus, climbing up on the side of one of the seats while trying to keep weight off her sore arm. Daryl’s hand reached down and caught hers just as her foot rolled off the edge of the squishy upholstery. He hauled her up through the opening and she smiled at him. “We made it.”

His lips twitched upward, the smallest of smiles to acknowledge their shared secret. They were snug inside the prison and Rick thought it had been all his idea.

She straightened and looked out over the yard, the fresh air bringing back the sense of freedom she’d felt earlier on the tower. It was the only time since all this started that there was an end to the walkers coming at them.

She could see all the threats clearly, the fences kept more from coming in behind them, and it was startlingly easy to aim and put down the enemy with the smallest squeeze of her finger. Not to mention she’d felt nearly as tall as one of those towers when Rick had chosen her to be amongst the shooters rather than stabbing walkers through the fence with the rest of the group.

Today was the first time since the end of the world that it felt like winning was an option.

Carol glanced over and her joy subsided just a little at how small that bowl looked in Daryl’s big hands. “It’s not much, but if I don’t bring you something, you won’t eat at all.” She shot him a glance to let him know what she thought of his continued stubbornness.

“Little Shane’s over there’s got quite the appetite.”

She almost laughed, then pressed her lips together to stop it. “Don’t be mean.” If Rick heard him say that, it would break his heart. It was one thing, knowing something. It was another thing having to endure the shame of everyone else knowing, too. “Rick’s gotten us a lot further than I thought he would, I’ll give him that,” she said with a tug of guilt at them taking the credit for the prison, even in her own mind. Rick had made that suicide run across the yard, after all, and that was a crazy enough move not even _Daryl_ had volunteered. “Shane never could have done that.”

Her arm ached and she wished she would have given Daryl her good hand not her bad. He’d pulled her up with so much strength it wrenched her already sore shoulder. She rolled it, trying to loosen the kink.

“ ’S wrong?” he asked.

She winced, telling him half the truth. “The kickback on that rifle. I’m just not used to it.”

Rick had taken the deer hunting rifle she’d trained with, because it was lighter to run with. Though she might not have nearly shot off his foot if he’d left her the scope she was used to.

“C’mere.” Daryl licked his fingers clean and set down his bowl.

She glanced out at the group, then at him. But maybe treating injuries didn’t trigger his superstition about other people seeing him being affectionate toward her, because he started massaging her muscle with quick, expert movements like he knew just where the strain settled into the cup of your shoulder and collarbone. But then, with the weight of the draw, that crossbow probably kicked like hell. The one time he’d tried to teach her to shoot it, the recoil had sent her arrow arching well up into the canopy of trees overhead.

The stars glistened like diamonds, the fire glowing like a red-gold ruby from across the yard, and Carol suddenly wondered if this massage was because he was trying to be romantic.

She peeked over at him. He glanced up, momentarily distracted from his work. She looked back at the yard, bemused. He was rubbing her purposefully but almost roughly, like he was working the knots out of Rick’s shoulder, without a single ulterior motive. He wasn’t trying to impress her or seduce his way into her pants. He was doing it because it needed to be done, and because he didn’t want her to be in pain. And to Carol, that was far more romantic than _trying_ to be romantic would ever be.

She’d never had anything like him, in her whole life.

Carol couldn’t help the smile spreading across her face and when she stole a look at him this time, awareness crept into his face. His fingers slowed, and got clumsier, like he’d just realized it was her _body_ underneath his hands.

Heat flushed through her and the very air between them seemed to thrill with possibilities. He shifted his weight, shrugging more of his poncho off his shoulders to hang down the front of him as he dropped his hands. “We should get back.”

Carol knew why he was putting the brakes on, but she couldn’t help a fond grin at his blushing because really, what on earth did he think he was hiding? The fact that they were attracted to each other? That ship had steamed out of the harbor and was well on its way to the horizon.

“I don’t know.” She pursed her lips, feeling mischievous and in the mood to enjoy the little surge of pride it brought to know he was aware enough of her that she could make him blush. “It’s pretty romantic…” she teased. Because it was everything he’d asked for. A warm, safe place where they could steal some privacy without worrying about the group’s safety, or their own. “Wanna screw around?”

She let her eyes slip down his body and back up. He stiffened like she’d licked him, then shot a look across the open yard to where the group sat. Then a wry look at the pile of walker bodies next to the prison fence. He snorted.

She laughed, because that first look meant he’d thought about it, at least for a moment.

He bent as he eyed the drop down into the bus. “I’ll go down first.”

“Even better,” she drawled.

He jerked a little, maybe because she’d never been so graphic with her teasing before. But her body was _alive_ tonight and her thoughts weren’t exactly clean.

“Stop,” he grumbled, but he disappeared into the shadows before she could see if she’d coaxed another blush out of him.

It was a long drop to the seats in the bus, and she ended up dangling her legs and letting him catch her, sliding down his body with the security of his arms controlling her speed. But at that range, not even the thick wool of his poncho could muffle his response to her teasing.

Carol grinned and took a breath to comment, but his mouth sealed her joke away, and as soon as his tongue touched her lips, she forgot everything she’d meant to say. Her mouth melted open, inviting him inside. One of his hands stayed locked around her waist and the other came up, tentatively, to brush her cheek. Her heart swelled, because this felt as much like _them_ as shooting from the tower side by side this morning.

They were together now, not just in the way they stayed close during the day as well as at night now. More like their minds had begun to parallel each other as much as their feet did. And right now his hunger for her was soothing the fierce burn down deep in her belly, the wriggle of uncertainty in the back of her mind. It felt good to know she wasn’t the only one wanting.

He pulled back, resting his forehead against hers and panting harder than he had earlier when they’d taken the prison. “Ain’t that I don’t wanna,” he growled.

She laid a hand flat against his chest, across the worn leather of his crossbow strap. “Shh, hey,” she stopped him. “I know, Daryl. I was just teasing.”

“Yard’s good,” he said. “But there ain’t nowhere to go ‘cept behind the bus.” His jaw set solid. “Ain’t gonna take m’ girl behind no bus.”

She closed her eyes and smiled into the kiss she left at the base of his throat. “I know you wouldn’t.” And he’d never relax if he was anywhere the others could hear them. He wanted to be with her, just her. She didn’t know how many walkers she’d have to kill to make that happen, but the thought made her want to start nailing them through the fence without even waiting for morning.

“If we can put down enough of them through the fence,” Daryl said, “we can take that next yard. Maybe one of the outbuildings where we can keep it cut off from the rest.”

She chuckled softly and he scowled.

“What? Didn’t say we could take on the whole damn prison. But if we do it smart, one piece at a time like today, we can.”

“That’s not why I’m laughing.” She reached up and stroked his hair back from his temple. “Great minds think alike, that’s all.”

He looked at her, looked away. “Don’t wantcha to go in, when we clear the next piece.”

Her hand fell and she frowned. “Why the hell not? I’m as good with a knife as Maggie, more accurate with a gun than T-dog, even if he is stronger.”

“You and Hershel are the only doctors. Until Lori’s time, we can’t risk ya or we might as well throw her to the walkers for all the chance she’ll have, skinny little hips like hers. ‘Sides, people’ll get hurt, taking on that many at once. If there ain’t nobody to stitch ‘em back up we won’t get far.”

She glared at him. “You’ve been working on that argument all day, haven’t you?”

“Didn’t need all day. Don’t take no brains to see the truth.” His arms tightened obstinately around her. “For the yards, you can shoot from a tower. Take just as many as you could with a knife, without riskin’ nothing.”

“Only trophy worth earning is being alive, right?” she said sourly. “Then why aren’t you going to be shooting from the tower, Mr. Don’t Take No Brains?”

“‘Cause Rick’s gonna want to save ammo, so he’s gonna try to kill as many as we can from the ground. Plus, once we find a little building to clear, won’t be able to shoot from a tower anyway. Might as well use a knife as risk plugging each other in the dark with a ricochet.” He looked off toward the exit to the bus, his face twitching as he chewed his lip. “Rick ain’t in the mood to play it smart right now. With ‘nother man’s baby in his wife’s belly, he’s gotta be on the front lines to feel like he’s still got balls in his britches.”

Carol half-laughed, shaking her head despite the seriousness of his tone. It was just what she’d been thinking earlier, but what a way to put it!

“I gotta be there with him or man’ll get himself killed.” Daryl met her eyes. “He did the same for me in Atlanta, when I’s out of my head and ready to run right into a herd if that’s where Merle’s trail led. He’d just met me, didn’t know me from a dog turd he’d stepped in. All he knew is that I got an asshole for a brother and he helped me try ’n find him anyhow.”

She squeezed his sides. That baby needed a father, their group needed a leader. But she already knew a part of her was going to wither the second Daryl was out of sight and she couldn’t shoot the walkers reaching for him.

“All right,” she said. “But if you go in there, play it smart and cautious. You’re used to being the muscle and letting Rick be the brains, but until he calms down, you need to be both. Because this place is nice, but it isn’t worth losing you over.” She looked back at him just as hard. “I’ll burn it to the ground tonight if I think you or anybody else is thinking of sacrificing themselves to win us a home with a fresh graveyard out front. You hear me?”

He ducked his head in the tiniest of nods, then gave her a shy smile. “A’right.”

“Speaking of which, _are_ you all right?” Carol asked as Maggie’s words came back to her. “I know you didn’t delay telling us about this prison for so long just because you were embarrassed that you knew where it was.”

His nose twitched and he stepped away from her, tugging at the edge of his poncho. “Oughta get back.”

“Claustrophobic?” she asked, wondering why the fence made him twitchier when all it made her feel was safe. “You were okay in the CDC, and heck, that was _underground_.”

He shoved the back of his wrist across his face. “Spent my whole damn life tryin’ to stay outta jail. It’s all just one big cage. Person gets ya in a cage, they can do whatever they want to ya. Cain’t run.”

She reached out and squeezed his arm, holding on a little longer than she needed to. “Hey, even if we take it for the group, you don’t have to stay in there. We can make a bedroom in that one tower, sleep up there. You can see for miles. It’s nothing like a cage.” Plus nobody’d be able to _hear_ them for miles. A tingle warmed her way down low at the thought.

“Nah,” he said, and something twinged painfully in her chest. “You oughta sleep near Lori, case the baby comes. I’ll be a’right.”

He started toward the back of the bus and she struggled with her expression, trying to stuff down her disappointment before they got back to the group. Had she been wrong? Was he not waiting just for privacy but he didn’t really want her that way?

But no, every time they’d touched she’d _felt_ his response, and he’d asked her to be his girl. He must be just taking his time.

Carol took a breath, letting her knee-jerk insecurity fade into the background again. Ed had said no one could ever want her but him, but he’d been wrong about that. He’d said she was worthless, too, and she wasn’t. Not as far as Daryl was concerned, or the rest of the group, who turned to her for a dozen different things just before breakfast. These days, they might very well be the only people left in the world. They were certainly the only ones whose opinions mattered to her.

Maybe he simply meant what he said and he really cared more about Lori and the baby than he did about getting his rocks off. It wasn’t just the lack of abuse that made Daryl a very different man than Ed.

The shadows slowly brightened as they reached the exit at the back of the bus and suddenly, the silence opened up into a voice raised in song.

Carol froze, her hand shooting out to grip Daryl’s arm. In the same instant, he threw out a hand to keep her back.

What on earth was Beth thinking? The sound would draw in all manner of dangerous things.

But then she remembered where they were and she relaxed, squeezing his bicep through the poncho.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Here, it’s safe to sing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <<<>>>
> 
> Author’s Note: Ahhh! I can’t believe we’re finally here. This closing note (with my own twists on the canon scene) has been in my head since the very first moment I conceived of this fic. And this is, truly, the end. But I’m still going to tack on several chapters of epilogue-y goodness because I’m a huge Happy Epilogue fan (my last book ended up with one about a penis tiara because Important Reasons) and because this is fanfic and I do what I want and also OMG CAROL STILL HASN’T GOTTEN LAID AND THAT IS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY CAN I GET AN AMEN? I never expected this to be a smutty fic but thanks to Daryl being shy AF, it’s turned out even less smutty than I would have preferred. Let’s see if I can fix that.


	35. Epilogue Pt 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline/canon note: I really angsted about letting this blend back into canon at the end, but then there’s no room for Carol and Daryl to relax and enjoy each other because five seconds after they get into the prison, Lori dies and Hershel loses a leg (I’m starting to understand why the show didn’t let Carol and Daryl get together at this point. No freaking space for kissing scenes.) Anyway, so since we’ve already busted out of canon with Carol and Daryl getting together, let’s leave this fic in happy non-canon land.
> 
> Carol was with Lori and she safely delivered the baby and fought off the walkers. Since she was such a good fighter, T-dog didn’t have to fight for her. Hershel kept a sharper eye out for the ankle biters and got to keep his leg. And everyone lived happily ever after. In a prison. Because irony.

Carol jiggled the baby in her arms, kissing the wispy little hairs atop Judith’s head. But no matter how many times she paced the upper balcony of their cell block, the crying didn’t abate. For the thousandth time, Carol felt a rush of gratitude for all the layers of metal between the baby and the walkers her cries would attract. There was something in that thought that struck at the heart of her, the way the newest life attracted death so loudly.

The stairs creaked as Hershel climbed up and Carol turned to him with a frown. “Are you sure she doesn’t have an ear infection? She’s so fussy today.”

The old man held out his arms and she handed over the baby. Where were they going to find antibiotics suitable for an infant? But as soon as Judith settled into Hershel’s arms, the cries softened to quiet murmurs, and the baby’s eyelids started to droop.

Carol sighed. “I think Judith just likes men better. She’ll always stop crying for Daryl before she’ll stop for me.”

“He was the first one to feed her.” Hershel smiled. “Maybe she thinks he’s her mother.”

Carol snorted. “You’d better not say that where he can hear you.” But as soon as the words passed her lips, her face fell. That wasn’t particularly likely, these days.

Judith had been born only a few days after they found the prison. The walkers had broken into the courtyard and the group had all gotten split up in the chaos. Carol had fought through to get Lori and Carl into a boiler room just as Lori’s labor had begun, and the stress sent the baby into distress. Carol had performed the C-section, all the while ignoring the sounds of moans and gunshots as Carl battled the walkers that inevitably found their hiding place. Thankfully, Lori had been fighting with her gun, not her knife, or they wouldn’t have had a single clean instrument to perform the surgery.

It had been the single most terrifying experience of her life. Praying the entire time that the baby would make it, that she wouldn’t screw up the surgery. That Daryl would find them.

Every one of her racing heartbeats had seemed to whisper his name until he appeared. A few minutes later and it would have been too late. The newborn baby’s cries had attracted more walkers and Carol hadn’t been able to improvise a bandage for Lori’s incision before she had to leave baby and mother to fight alongside Carl. The whole hallway had filled with the walking dead and then _whoomp_ Daryl’s bolt had felled the walker she’d been wrestling. He and Rick came around that corner like a two-man army. Daryl had fought harder than she’d ever seen that day; shooting walkers with one hand and stabbing with the other. One shot, one stab, reload. One shot, one stab, reload.

Even after they’d gotten Lori safe back to Hershel’s care, her milk wouldn’t come in—too many months of starvation and stress. The baby had grown weaker while Lori kept trying and trying to feed it until Daryl threw down the bolt shaft he’d been whittling into oblivion. Said he was going on a run and fucked if he’d was waiting for rest or the light of morning.

Rick was half out of his mind with the need to provide for his baby and also be with his recovering wife. Carol had to shout straight into his face to get him to stay behind while she and Daryl went for formula.

That day care center had been a gift: from God or the devil, she hadn’t been sure at first. Not until they’d clasped hands, bracing themselves without looking at each other, and gone inside to find it blessedly empty of tiny walkers.

She’d gathered armloads of diapers and formula, her nerves tickling when she’d realized she couldn’t hear Daryl in the other room. She’d drawn her knife and gone searching, only to find him stock still and staring at a little purple construction paper hand that said “Sofie.” She’d wrapped him in her arms from behind, laying her cheek on his shoulder, and told him, “You would have found Sophia. If her daddy had taught her to survive in the woods the way you’ve been teaching Carl, she would have lasted a few more days and you _would_ have found her.”

And then she just held him, comforting him even while inside, she kept reliving Lori’s grunts of pain, the moans of the walkers. The blast of Carl’s pistol and the boy’s terrifying silence as he stood between them and danger, his feet planted and his pants riding up and exposing his ankles because he’d already outgrown the trousers she’d lengthened for him.

“Carol,” Hershel murmured, and she blinked back into reality. “Do you want to tell me what’s bothering you?”

She huffed out a breath that was half a snort, because what on earth did she have to complain about, compared to the others? And to complain _now_ , when they had fences and _beds_ and Lori had finally kicked the fever that they’d all feared meant she’d been contaminated with walker blood. “I’m—”

“Fussing so quietly that the baby had to cry for you,” Hershel finished.

She glanced guiltily at Judith, now sleeping in his arms. But even that reminded her of the night in the daycare center with Daryl. That last night before things changed between them.

Hershel moved into his cell and she followed, dropping his privacy quilt behind them to muffle the sound.

In the daycare, she’d been holding Daryl so tightly that she sensed his voice more than heard it. Which was part of the reason she hadn’t thought she’d heard him right.

“You ever want ‘nother little girl?”

The pain in his voice had been so low, so sharp, that she’d forgotten for a second Sophia wasn’t his.

She’d been almost as surprised to hear herself answer, “Yes.”

But after she thought about it, she realized it was still true and she’d rubbed her thumb over his hard stomach, comforting both of them.

“If it was safe,” she had said. “I mean, it might be too late for me. I haven’t gone through the change yet, but it can’t be too far off, and I’ve never carried babies well.”

Then again, she’d never been pregnant in a place where her man’s hands would care for her instead of pummeling her. Daryl would be so careful with her, if she carried his child. Hell, he always was, even though that might never happen. The thought had given her courage to turn him around so he was facing her, meeting his eyes when she said, “If it was with you, yes. I’d want more children.”

Now, she sat down hard on Hershel’s bunk, curling a little forward to ease the pain in her stomach. Because that moment had been the most intimate they’d ever shared, and she’d barely seen Daryl since.

“Are you not feeling well?” Hershel asked.

She stared at the floor, fighting the urge to gasp. There was plenty of air, she knew that. It just didn’t feel like it.

“Daryl’s pulling away again,” she whispered. “I don’t know why this time. I thought things were getting better, that he trusted me. I thought—”

She’d thought he was happy.

Her guts curdled with the thought of her own arrogance. How Ed would have laughed, at the thought that _she_ could make a man happy.

She swallowed, glaring at the floor as she shook off the old thought. Not everything was her fault. And she hadn’t done anything wrong. They hadn’t even fought. She’d simply answered a question that Daryl had asked. Maybe it wasn’t the answer he wanted. She could see him refusing to father a child he couldn’t be absolutely certain he could keep safe, and she could also see him deciding to push her away so she could have that opportunity with another man, rather than telling her how he felt.

She sat up straighter. No matter what was bothering him, it wasn’t her fault. Too bad that didn’t narrow down the possibilities too much.

She looked to Hershel. “Do you know what might be wrong with him, this time? Because I’ll be damned if I’ll let him isolate himself from the group, but I’m lost. I don’t know what happened and if I don’t know what happened, I don’t know how to help him.”

The older man’s lips twitched beneath his beard and his eyes were surprisingly warm for the topic. “I expect you don’t need to worry too much about that boy,” he said.

“Then where is he going off to all the time?” she pressed.

He slept on the perch, with a direct line of sight to the cell she still shared with Lori and Judith, despite her best efforts to urge Rick to take his place with his family. She knew when Daryl was off clearing cell blocks, because then the group was gone with him. She was doing it alongside him, whenever she wasn’t with the baby. But when everyone else was resting, he’d disappear and come back sweaty and so bloody she was worried he was single-handedly trying to clear out the entire forest around them.

“Perhaps he just wanted a moment alone,” Hershel suggested. “We’ve been living out of each other’s pockets for months.”

Carol gave him a look. “Two weeks of ‘moments alone’ that leave him exhausted and streaked in dirt and walker blood?”

The older man looked down at the baby in his arms.

“When I was younger,” he said. “My wife started going out on Tuesday nights. Always said she was doing errands. But she never came home with any packages.” He tucked the blanket tighter around Judith’s face. “I was sober at the time, but I remembered all too well that stories that didn’t match up with the details were usually just that: stories.” Above his white beard, his eyes were sad when they met Carol’s. “I lied to my wife more times than I could count. Perhaps part of me wished she’d lie back, just once, so I could feel I wasn’t so far into the wrong. Maybe that’s why I accused her of sneaking out on Tuesdays to see another man.”

Carol picked at the bedding beneath them, wishing Hershel wouldn’t always tell his stories so slowly because she wanted to go out in the yard, see if she could spot any sign of Daryl in the trees. “Hershel, I’m not worried Daryl’s cheating on me. He’s not the type, even if the Swedish bikini team were hiding out in this prison.” She swallowed a sigh.

Even after they’d found the safety of the walls of the prison, they hadn’t gotten beyond a little making out in quiet hallways before one or the other members of the group would interrupt them. Her hand rubbed over the spot on her belly where Daryl’s hand had crept under her shirt, just once.

“Well, as it turned out, neither was my wife. She had joined a knitting circle.”

Carol frowned, tucking Judith’s bare foot back into her blanket. “Your wife lied to you about knitting?”

“She was afraid I’d object to the expense of the yarn.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “My drinking years did a great deal of damage to our marriage. Especially to the trust we’d once had between us, when we first married.”

She scratched at a dark spot on her pants, frowning. “It’s not about not trusting him. He does this, pulls away. When he’s afraid to let people close or when he thinks they don’t want him.”

“He does,” Hershel agreed. “But sometimes, it’s best to have faith and simply ask before you assume the worst. It might be that he just decided to take up knitting.”

She had to smile at that, in spite of her dark mood. “Maybe.”

She remembered the look in Daryl’s eyes when she told him she’d want more children, if they were his. Awe, and fear. And hunger. She _knew_ that moment had been every bit as important to him as it had been to her.

Maybe Hershel was right. Despite whatever secrets Daryl was keeping, they were building a home here. They had safety, and food, and family. They were deciding what the world would be now, and part of that was learning to plan for the worst, but expect the best.

She would just have to be patient, until he was ready to share his secret with her.


	36. Epilogue Pt 2

Daryl smashed his hair down with both hands, water droplets slicking out of the shaggy strands and pattering to the concrete floors. His heart was pounding away like he was doing a hell of a lot more than just walking down a hallway. Maybe just ‘cause he was tired.

Hershel’d pulled him aside yesterday and told him he best hurry his ass up on his project because Carol was starting to get suspicious. Fuck, like he didn’t know that from the way her eyes narrowed on his stained clothes when he came in from working. Not that she ever asked. He kinda liked that about her, the way she didn’t miss much but she didn’t jump into people’s business with both feet like Maggie. Still, after Hershel’s warning, he was up all night finishing. Came back to find a container of food waiting on his pillow, so she hadn’t missed that, neither.

But even if she knew exactly what he was doing, he weren’t telling her until he was good and ready. First, ‘cause he’d really needed a shower first. Second, ‘cause she worked too hard as it was and he wasn’t about to let her take this on, too. Like Glenn had said, there were some things a man had to do himself.

The babble of voices rose as he passed through the cell block toward the room where they always ate. Axel was telling one of his stories with a lot more volume than truth, and Glenn burst out laughing, which probably meant he’d just fallen for that crap.

Daryl stopped dead, heat flashing through his whole body like he was about to be sick. This was it, really it. What if she didn’t like it? He shook his head, scowling at the ground as he blasted toward the common room. He weren’t no coward and everybody in the whole damn prison would know if he backed out now. He steamed into the doorway, glimpsed everybody eating, and turned right back around and walked out again.

Fuck.

They were eating lunch. All of them. And they’d gone silent as churchmice, which meant they was listening like churchmice, too. Why hadn’t he planned a time when nobody’d be watching ‘em? He shoved his hands through his hair, pacing up and down the hallway. He hadn’t thought past the shower. His head was fuzzy from lack of sleep and from imagining this moment a thousand different ways over the last two weeks of brutal work. When he swung around for another round of pacing, Carol was standing right there. His heart backflipped and his stomach settled.

“What happened?” she said, very quietly. “Do you want me to get Rick?”

Because of course. Just from that one glimpse of him, she’d known he wasn’t there to eat, that he had something on his mind, and that he didn’t want to say it in front of the group. His footsteps slowed and he went over to stand with her. That made him feel better about things. Carol was like a soft buffer between him and the sharp edges of the rest of the world. She just…didn’t seem to mind him.

Not the way he didn’t match up with the rest of the group, or the way his tone usually came out harsher than he meant it to, his words plainer. Some of the things about him that he’d always thought were weird were things she did, too. And no matter how bad he fucked things up sometimes, she stayed calm and gentle, sometimes made a little joke so it didn’t seem so awful. When it was just him and her alone, shit was just easier.

He touched her arm. “Wanna show you somethin’.”

“All right.” Her eyes warmed. “It’s a roast pig, right? With barbecue sauce?”

His lips twitched. “Mm-hmm.”

She nodded crisply. “I’d expect nothing less.”

The corners of his eyes lightened, and he felt like smiling right back at her. Instead, he took her hand. They were in full view of the doorway, and doing it set his guts to twisting and wringing again, but he did it anyway. It always felt like somebody was going to laugh that he’d dare to touch a woman like her, or maybe arrest him or something. Or that as soon as he let himself feel how much he liked it, she’d disappear right out of his hands. Chewed up into blood and mud like Dale had been.

But Daryl also remembered how his neighbor Bobby would play with him at home but looked the other way at school when Daryl rounded the corner with his grass stained pants and thrift store backpack. He never wanted Carol to feel like he only wanted her when no one else was looking.

He squeezed her hand. “You eat already?”

“I’m not very hungry.”

He scowled.

She patted his bicep with her free hand. “I’ll eat later. When _you_ do.” The prod was gentle, but it was there. “Now what did you want to show me?”

He led her into the main cell block, then out the door on the far side. Into a corridor, where he had to let go of her hand to unlock the next portal, then unclip the chain and carabiner that he’d welded into the frame of every door. They had a lot of cleared area now, and only two sets of keys. This way, if walkers broke through again, every door was a point where they could be stopped. Every room a potential sanctuary.

He hadn’t welded since high school shop class but it weren’t rocket science. Once he’d found the welder in one of the maintenance rooms, he’d figured it out again pretty quick.

Carol touched his back, tension in her slim fingers. “I’ve only got my knife. Let me get my pistol if we’re going into the non-cleared wing.”

He ducked a look back at her, trying to hide his excitement. “ ’S a’ight.”

He tipped his chin toward the hallway and she followed. A little nervous, but trusting him. He clipped the carabiner shut, his shoulders feeling like they’d grown an inch or two beneath the cotton of his clean shirt.

They walked down the hall, through another gate, and into another cell block. Tension radiated from Carol now, but her hand fell from her knife when she glanced into the cells and found them empty. Her eyes narrowed and she strayed a step further from him, studying the floor.

He stopped and let her take her time, his face lifting in spite of himself. Hershel had been right. It had been worth it to take the time to clean after he dragged the bodies out. Safe was one thing but bloodstains just didn’t never put a person in the right frame of mind.

“Was this cell block empty?” she finally murmured.

He snorted. “Not hardly.” Overrun with jumpsuited prisoners from the far side, in addition to the ones who’d been shot in their cells. But he’d shot the better part of them through the gate, gone in and stabbed the rest, then sealed off the far side. Later, he wished he would have risked luring them out into the yard before he shot them, but the extra labor had been worth not putting the group at risk if one got away from him.

She trailed her fingers over the bars, peeking into the cell. “It’s so…clean.”

“Better be.” That had been an entire week, right there.

She turned around, and awareness was starting to dawn across her face. “Why, Mr. Dixon, no man has given me a whole cell block before…” She was fully grinning now, her hands sliding around his hips in a way that made his skin tingle and his brain go as sluggish as creek mud. “Did you do all of this yourself?”

“Tried.”

He hadn’t told anybody what he was up to, but then he’d damn near thrown his back out hauling a giant-sized walker. Forgot how big people could grow before the turn, specially on all that chicken fried steak and gravy mix they’d found spoiled in the freezer. Rick had found him trying to rig a pull chain from the truck down two hallways and around a corner. The sheriff had helped him carry out the rest of the bodies after that. Plus, he’d had to ask Lori how to get blood out of concrete when water didn’t do the trick. She gave him some cleaning fluid stuff but the next day, he went in and there was Maggie, scrubbing away at the floor. When he told her that no way were her and Glenn using the room at the end, she just shrugged, gave him a funny little smile, and kept cleaning.

The next morning Beth gave him new sheets and his face got all hot and he ended up yelling at her even though he hadn’t really meant to.

Carol smirked, fussing with straightening the collar on his shirt even though it was half-ripped off from the teeth of a walker three weeks ago. “I bet. It’s hard to keep a secret in this place.

“Goddamn whole place poking their noses into our business,” Daryl growled.

She glanced around at the empty cell block and gave a small, happy-sounding sigh. “So are you planning on moving us out of the main block so Judith doesn’t wake us up three times a night?”

He frowned, his hands stilling where they’d found their normal place at the upper curve of her waist. He hadn’t considered she might want to move.

“Could, I guess,” he said. “Plenty of rooms.”

“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” she said, responding immediately to his tone.

“Just…close enough to hear if something happened but it’d take us a minute to get down there.” He chewed on his lip. “You could move. I could…maybe we could have a watch inside as well as out. I mean, move between the two wings. ‘Cept—”

She touched his lips and he was immediately distracted by how soft her fingers were. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “I kind of like being near enough to know everybody’s okay. Plus, with you and me taking turns feeding Judith, Lori gets more sleep.”

Daryl lowered his head, pressing a kiss to her forehead and resting his cheek atop her short, silver hair for a second. When Carol took the baby, she used to sit on the stairs to feed it, ‘till he grunted at her that she may as well be comfortable, wasn’t gonna bother him any. After that, she’d perch on the edge of his mattress, and he’d flip the edge of his blankets over her lap. Sometimes, the humming in the back of her throat would soothe him right back to sleep. But other times, he’d lay still and just watch her with the baby. Her hands were so gentle it did something strange inside him. Lots of nights, he’d wonder what Sophia looked like when she was that little. Wondered if there were pictures left anywhere, if he could go far enough to get them back for Carol.

Sometimes, he thought about what she’d said that night in the daycare center, about wanting babies if they were his. He should have answered her, but his brain had spun immediately away into planning and he’d forgotten to say, “Not yet” until the moment was gone.

They needed to shore up the fences and seal the back edges of the prison. Get the farm established and food stocked back, find a breeding set of pigs, and hopefully chickens. They needed to figure out how to reload bullets and get more medicine. Set up his redirect fences to push the walkers away before they ever got to the prison. Figure out how to raid that overrun Big Spot down the road before all the cans spoiled.

There were a thousand things he had to do first, because he’d rather never have a child of his own than risk Carol having to lose one again.

Daryl cleared his throat and took her hand, leading her to the far end of the cell block and through another barred portal. Here, there were three solid doors with the word **SOLITARY** stenciled on them in black paint.

He used his keys to lock the last set of bars, then opened the first solid door for Carol, and stepped back so she could look. Even without bars, the walls in this place closed in on him until he’d come back and drilled out the locking mechanism. Now, it couldn’t accidentally latch behind them, no matter what.

“Anybody needs us,” he explained, “they can come through the cell block, shout from the bars. But can’t come this far, so we don’t need ta lock t’door. N’ this block don’t lead to nowhere so they can’t walk in by accident.”

She didn’t answer, just looking in at the room he’d prepared for them.

Lori had brought clean white prison sheets to hang over the walls, which was probably best since they had initials and dicks scratched in all over them. Glenn had given him condoms, which he thought was pretty fucking generous of the little Korean considering how often he had Maggie up in that guard tower. Glenn’d also brought a stack of small towels and a trash can for the cell, and clapped Daryl on the back when he left.

Daryl had pretended he’d known what that meant.

Carol wasn’t looking at the sheet-hung walls, though, or the trash can, or the little table with a beer bottle and a sprig of wildflowers stuck in the top—not a Cherokee rose, because he hadn’t wanted her to think of Sophia and be sad. Just a purple flower that had a happier story he figured he could tell her sometime when she was in the mood for stories.

Carol wasn’t looking at the flower, either. She was looking at the bed, which he suddenly realized took up a _lot_ of the tiny room.

“Ain’t what you think.”

She didn’t answer.

“We ain’t gotta.” He coughed against the tickle in his throat. “Just…everything belongs to the group. Wanted a spot for us that didn’t.”

He touched her waist, his thumb brushing against the small of her back, because he thought she might be chewing over some dark kinda thoughts. He used to be more nervous about touching her, but once he’d started to sort out what she did and didn’t like, he felt a lot easier about giving in to the part of him that wanted to have her close to him all the time.

He couldn’t catch her arm; didn’t matter how gentle he did it, or even if it was to yank her away from a walker. It always made her head tuck down and her shoulders suck in small. So he didn’t, less’n he had to. And he couldn’t hug her from behind if she was doing the dishes.

All the rest of the time, she’d relax back into his chest, her short hair tickling softly against his neck. But if she was standing at a sink washing up, she’d go stiff like she was bracing and even after she realized it was him, sometimes she’d act a little off for a minute or two. Besides those two exceptions, she seemed to like most anything he did, so he touched her all the time when they were alone.

Now, she looked back at him with a smile and that mischievous glint in her eye. “Daryl, I’ve been trying to seduce you for weeks. We’re edging a lot closer to ‘gotta’ than ‘want to’ these days. I was just trying to figure out where you found a queen-sized bed in a prison.”

“Ain’t. Just two little ‘uns pushed together. They ain’t got blood on ‘em,” he hurried to reassure her. It’d been hard as hell to find completely clean mattresses, and finally, he’d had to trade T-dog one with just a light blood spatter on one corner for T’s unmarked one. Somehow, he thought that might be important to Carol. “Beth found the bigger set of sheets.” He didn’t know where. They clearly weren’t prison-issue with their little flower print, but they were washed, so he hadn’t asked.

She turned and wrapped her arms around his waist. “You wanted a place for us. I understand.” She kissed him. “I did, too.”

His arms tightened. “I know it ain’t much. I could try to find a house nearby, with a porch maybe. Work up some fences to redirect walkers away from it, fix it up. Thing is, I don’t like being so far from the prison. Can’t help thinking, if somebody attacked when we wasn’t there to help…” He broke off. “Been lookin’ for some radios so we could call—”

“Stop. This is perfect.”

His stomach sank as he glanced around. He’d tried like hell, but somehow, seeing it with her here made it impossible to overlook that it was just a box with some sheets tacked up to hide the graffiti. “It’s a cell.”

“In the old world this was a cell. In the new, this is a penthouse. Walls, safety, privacy, mattresses. Clean sheets.” She whooped, and he jumped as it rebounded off the walls. “Wait, listen. Nobody came running.” She grinned. “I can make noise without anything trying to eat me, and it never rains in here.” She winked. “Looks like I landed me a rich man.”

He snorted at that. Hell, nobody was rich any more. Wasn’t no money.

Carol’s eyes widened and her eyes lit up. “Oh my God, do you want to take a _nap_? Right in the middle of the day. Everybody’ll assume I’m having my way with you, they won’t bother us for an hour at least, maybe two. We could actually sleep, without Hershel’s snoring and Judith’s crying…” She let out a breathy sigh, walking backwards into the solitary confinement cell and pulling him along with her.

“Nap?” he echoed dubiously.

She hooked a finger in his shirt collar. “Unless you wanna do something else.”

His face grew hot, his muscles twitchy. “No, nap’s good. Ain’t slept a full night in…” He tried to think, but couldn’t remember. “Since the turn, probly.”

She sat down on the mattresses. They were right on the floor, since all the bed frames in the prison were singles. Since there weren’t any windows, he took out his lighter and lit the big scented jar candle. They’d scored a whole shelf of those at some Hallmark store in town, scouting past where all the cards lay crumpled and stained brown from a steady leak in the roof.

This candle was red and said Home Sweet Home on the front. Wasn’t anything like what any of his homes had smelled like, but mosta the other candles smelled like plastic cupcakes and he knew Carol liked red. He closed the door behind them and sat down beside her, the warring scents tickling inside his nostrils as they worked off their boots and he unwound the tick garters from the legs of his pants.

“Sorry them sheets smell like bushes. Beth said she rolled ‘em in something to make ‘em smell nice but she couldn’t find whatever plant she really wanted.”

“It’s nice.” Carol put her boots aside, under the side table. “Outdoorsy. Almost like sage or rosemary, but not quite.”

“Yeah, ‘cause it ain’t rosemary, it’s bush.”

She snorted out laughter. “I was trying to be nice.”

He hauled her into his lap and hugged her tight. “Ain’t gotta be nice,” he growled. “Don’t care about them sheets. You like this place okay?”

“I like it the second best of everything in the whole world.”

His face fell and his arms loosened around her. Maybe he should have tried to fix up one of the guard towers. They had a better view, more light, but you could hear the walkers moaning from in there and everybody saw you going in, plus they’d get hot as a fishbowl in hell in the summertime.

Carol turned on his lap, grasping his shirt and shaking him a little bit. “Stop, I can hear you thinking in there. I meant after you. _You’re_ my first favorite thing in the world.” She leaned back, giving him a teasing grin. “I would like you in a house, I would like you with a mouse, I would like you here or there, I would like you anywhere.” She finished with a kiss to his cheek.

He blinked, happy that she was happy but not entirely sure how to play along with her in such a lighthearted mood. “You’re good at rhyming stuff,” he finally mumbled.

“It’s Dr. Seuss! Your mom never—anyway, he writes kid’s books.” She waved her hand. “Doesn’t matter.” She wriggled off his lap and pulled back the sheets and the single blanket.

He shrugged off his vest and tossed it on top of his boots, lay down next to her. She snuggled up right onto his chest, her short hair tickling his chin, and he let out a deep breath without thinking. “Wasn’t just for us,” he said. “If you need quiet, you can come here. All ya gotta say is you wanna be alone.”

“It’s something we both need more than the others, I think,” she murmured. “Quiet.”

She snuggled her head further into his shoulder. Daryl tried to relax but every time she breathed out, the air stroked the curve of his neck. His skin got all prickly, then tingly, then he started to get hard. He shifted his legs, but that just brought his attention to an odd tension in his thigh muscles. He squirmed again and Carol lay a hand over his stomach. He went still. Her littlest finger had fallen into the gap between his shirt and his pants and he couldn’t think about anything else. His dick was lengthening, and if it got any harder, it would nudge the edge of her hand.

He breathed out, trying to remember something else he could think about. Something other than her hand.

Carol started rubbing soft, slow circles over his belly. Ah, fuck.

The weight of her head lifted off his shoulder and her soft lips pressed against the already-sensitized skin of his neck. He made a sound, then froze. He hadn’t been paying attention and what the hell had just come out of him? Was it a grunt? A whimper? Had Carol heard it? Did he sound like a pussy?

He tried to hold out, but had to jerk a fast adjustment to the leg of his pants. It wasn’t exactly where he was needing more space but it was as close as he was going to touch with Carol’s quick eyes in the same room. The woman missed nothing.

Her fingers smoothed inside the collar of his shirt. His pulse blasted up through his veins and he reminded himself she was just cuddling. The way she sometimes did before she went to sleep. It was affectionate, that’s all. It was more than he’d had in his whole sorry life and if he weren’t a filthy-minded sumbitch, he wouldn’t be thinking more about it than that. She certainly wasn’t.

His elbows pressed into the thin mattress as he clamped his arms to his sides.

The circle she was rubbing on his belly dipped just below the button of his pants. Then lower. His vision was starting to wobble black with lack of oxygen but maybe if he held his breath, the air would starve off his cock and it wouldn’t grow any bigger, because if Carol—

Her third circle dipped dangerously low and something clicked in his mind. His head bolted off the pillow and he stared down at her slim, beautiful face. “You didn’t want a nap at all, didja?”

“Had to get you into bed somehow, didn’t I?”

Her hand was caught between his waistband and his naked skin, the head of his erection prodding it, and he was scowling before he could think better of it.

_You just ain’t got a way with the ladies, do you, little brother?_

Merle’s voice drifted through his mind and he tried to shove it aside, tried to think past the thundering of his heartbeat.

Carol smiled, unabashed. “You were all blushing and shy. I didn’t think the head massage trick would work twice.”

He rolled on top of her.

Hellfire, he’d been fantasizing about this moment for longer than he’d ever admit to her. There was something really screwed up about scrubbing brains out of rough concrete prison floors while thinking about the smooth curve of your woman’s breasts, but when faced with the reality of her here in bed with him, he couldn’t seem to feel too bad about it.

“Ain’t shy,” he growled.

He flicked open the button on her pants on his first try, shifted off her so he could strip them down. Her panties were peach colored. Cotton, and nice, and he grabbed them, too, determined to prove that he wasn’t no amateur. But then her breath jagged and he paused and stole a glance at her face. Not like he wasn’t sure this was what she wanted. But just to check.

Her face was pale, her cheekbones flushed, and he knew what that meant. He swept her panties off. Her toes wriggled madly when he passed them, and that made him smile. But then when he rose back up, his eyes caught on her long, bare, beautiful legs and he remembered.

No girl he’d ever fucked had wanted to do it twice.

For the last few weeks, he’d been trying to figure out how to get better before Carol found out. He finally found the Joy of Oral Sex in a rotting library, the mold of wet books heavy in the air that clung to his teeth where they were clamped on the metal of the flashlight. But then walkers had come and it was hard to fight and hold the book, too. It had gotten brains all over it and he’d had to run and somehow it got left behind along with any chance he had at doing a better job with Carol.

He dropped his head to her collarbone, fighting back the panic that urged him to make excuses, say he had stuff to do out in the yard. His hand clenched against her warm hip.

Her fingers cupped the back of his neck, combing through his hair softly. “You know, if you’re not any good in bed, I’ll just go find myself another boyfriend.”

His head jerked up.

She shrugged. “Plenty of good men these days. I’ll just pick one out.”

He snorted.

She rolled her eyes at him. “Well? I wasn’t the one being ridiculous.”

“ ‘M sorry.” He bent and leaned his forehead to hers.

“You should be,” she whispered, squirming a little under his palm. “You take a girl’s pants off and then put your hand three inches too far to the left…you’re just a tease, Daryl Dixon.” Even from this close, he saw her eyes flash with amusement. “Or an exhibitionist. Do you need me to start a campfire and call the group in here? Because I know darn well you know exactly what to do with that hand when you have a mind to.”

He kissed her. Partially so she’d stop teasing him, because it was a whole lot different to hear her _talk_ about doing that stuff than it had been to simply do it.

After the blizzard that snowed them into that house for two days, they’d started sharing their blankets every night, whether they were camped out or squatting in a house. He hadn’t meant it to go farther than sleeping, but they’d both been just half-out-of-their-minds horny. One night his hand had slipped a little lower than her belly and she’d held it there when he started to take it away. It had gone from there.

Pretty soon every night, his hand would slip down her pants as soon as everybody else was asleep. She was shockingly good at staying quiet and motionless when he was doing things to her. Even controlled her breathing so it sounded normal. But where nobody could see, she’d soak his fingers, squeeze them tight inside of her. It drove him half out of his mind wondering how many nights this winter she’d taken care of herself under that blanket, laying only an arm’s length away from him but not making a sound to give away what she was doing under there.

Couple times, he’d had to walk out in the woods afterward. He was good at being quiet, too.

He’d been a little hesitant about exactly how to do it at first, but since she couldn’t make a sound, she held onto his forearm, and he could tell by her grip when he was doing the right thing.

Course, that had led to a whole other to-do, after a walker attack one day when his sleeve had gotten torn and Rick had seen the scratch marks on his forearm. Man had gone half-nuts and wouldn’t believe Daryl when he said they weren’t walker scratches. He’d been damn near to flattening Rick’s nose—the fuck did he think? That Daryl wouldn’t finish the job himself if the fever came for him? That he’d fucking _lie_ about it?—when Carol had shut everyone up by saying _she’d_ left the scratches.

He shook his head at the memory, moving his hand off her hip and a little closer in. “Ya want me to do that now?” He tried to sound like he had any idea how this was supposed to go, now that they had the privacy to do more than fumble around under a pile of blankets. Truth was, he was used to a couple of sloppy, whiskey-flavored kisses and then spitting on his hand, rubbing that on his dick to smooth his way for a quick rut up against a wall or on a scratchy couch while Merle and his girl for the night took the bedroom.

“Either that or take off your pants,” she said matter-of-factly, teasing but not teasing in that way she had that he kind of liked. It was nice, because it meant he could act like she was joking if it was something he didn’t want to do, and she’d just let him pretend. But if he didn’t want it to be a joke, then it wasn’t.

And now that he finally had her alone and safe, joking was the last thing on his mind.


	37. Epilogue Pt 3

When Daryl skinned off his pants, Carol was glad he had his back turned, because a spasm of surprise rocketed across her face.

“If I’d known getting you naked was as easy as asking,” she teased. “You’d have been in real trouble the last few weeks.”

“Stop.” He threw his underwear after his pants and rolled back up next to her, leaving on the long-sleeved black shirt he’d been wearing. Her mouth went dry and she went through a lightning round of should-I-look-should-I-not in her head before keeping her eyes squarely on his face.

“If I call you shy again, will you rip my shirt off, too?”

He snorted and pulled her up to sitting, tugging the shirt up and off her head with a series of jerks she was pretty sure wouldn’t qualify as sexy anywhere. But her heart slammed in her chest like it didn’t know the difference. His gaze flicked down and back up rapidly and she caught his chin, his whiskers tickling her fingertips.

“You can look,” she whispered. Then she reached behind herself and popped the clasp on her bra. She kept her gaze up, because there was no mirror in the world as kind to her as his eyes and she loved to watch him watch her. She drank in the slight widening of his pupils, the bob of his swallow. Carol let the bra fall down her arms and arched her back a little bit. His tongue darted out and wet his lips, quick like he didn’t know he was doing it.

She leaned forward with a moan and grabbed him by the collar, chasing his tongue back into his mouth. Rolling up onto her knees, she leaned forward, naked and feeling so free, like she was living inside a fantasy and she could control every part of it.

And she could.

All she had to do was tell him what she liked, and he’d try to do it. She knew he would. And he’d never force her to do anything she didn’t want, even if it was _not a big deal, why can’t you do just one thing you know will make me happy?_

She pulled out of the kiss with a gasp and Daryl’s eyes snapped open.

“What?”

She shook her head, shoving away the unwelcome memory of Ed’s voice. “I’m okay.”

His blue eyes narrowed and she caught his hand to distract him, slid it up her naked thigh. God, it was so different not to be all tangled up in blankets, his hand squashed inside her pants, her half-suffocating to stay quiet.

She was almost embarrassingly wet but she didn’t hesitate to press his fingers right to the center of her, because she knew how much he liked feeling her aroused. He sucked in a breath, stifling it to silence halfway through, and she smiled. “We don’t have to be quiet here,” she reminded him.

His eyes focused sharp on her face, burning as his fingers slid over her. Her nipples prickled. She’d never looked at him while he was touching her this way. He had always been behind her, his chest solid and warm. The first few times, she’d needed that comfort to allow the intimacy. But now, he wasn’t looking away and she didn’t want him to. Maybe Daryl wasn’t shy after all.

“Inside,” she whispered, rocking against his hand. “Please.”

He slid two fingers into her. And he didn’t look away.

She lost her breath. Kneeling on a mattress stark naked with his hand between her spread legs, her breasts bare to his eyes for only the second time. She felt like somebody wild and strong and courageous. She felt like somebody else and at the same time, she felt exactly like herself.

He curled his fingers to hit her favorite spot, so much easier from this angle. She gasped and caught his forearm for balance. His cheek twitched a little and she moved her grip higher. “Sorry.” She winced. “I didn’t mean to scratch you. I just forget—”

“Like it,” he grunted. And for the first time, his response was naked for her to see that he did, jutting out from beneath the tails of his shirt.

He turned his hand, pressing the thick pad at the base of his thumb against her clit. She let her head fall back, rocking against his touch because she _could_ this time.

“ _God_ , you got good at that fast,” she groaned. His fingers thrummed deep into her and her eyes fell open just in time to catch the flash of a smirk cross his face. She slid her hand up his bare thigh and he flinched, his fingers jerking inside her.

She met his eyes. “Can I? I don’t have to, if you don’t want that.”

He snorted and she narrowed her eyes.

“It’s a valid question.”

He still looked skeptical that she’d need to ask. “You first, though,” he said.

He drew his fingers out of her, playing slick and wet across the layers of her. She grabbed his shoulders, her thighs tightening as he started to rub in the rhythm she could never resist for long. He didn’t get too fancy with it, probably because he knew slow and slick was her kryptonite. But this time, he could use both hands.

She squeaked when the thick fingers of his left hand entered her while his right kept toying up higher. Suddenly, kneeling was way too much. Her inner muscles clenched against his fingers and fell forward, hiding her face in his neck and holding onto his shoulders while both his hands worked her.

He made a deep, rumbling sound. It wasn’t quite a question, wasn’t a statement. It felt almost like he was holding her even though his hands were busy. He flattened his palm over her clit and thrust his fingers deep into her and suddenly she was clamping down around him, falling into his lap and shaking all over as she broke into a sweat.

“Dammit,” she gasped and he chuckled.

“Was you always…”

He took his hands away, laying her down in their bed and stretching out next to her.

“What?” she asked fuzzily, trying to blink him back into focus.

“Nothin’.”

“Was I what? Always a two-minute date?” She laughed at the look on his face. “I told you that you got good at that fast. Also, you’ve been a little too busy for me lately, what with making us a private hideaway room and everything.”

“Ain’t busy now.”

He moved his hand up her belly, hesitating before his palm swept over her bare breast. She shivered and arched into this touch. His fingers brushed at the peak of her nipple, then traced the very edge of the pink. He tucked an arm under his head, his eyes intent on what he was doing. While he was distracted, Carol brushed aside the tails of his shirt and stroked her palm down the shaft of his cock.

He jerked. “Shit!”

“I’m going to take that as a compliment,” she said dryly, wrapping her fingers around him for a firmer stroke. A quiver ran through his whole body. He scooted a little closer.

She rubbed him, goosebumps breaking out over her whole body. It was ridiculous. There weren’t many men in the world who would object to a woman doing what she was doing. But somehow, in this quiet room, it felt like such an act of trust that he was allowing it.

“You don’t have to take off your shirt,” she murmured. “But I want you to know if you do, I won’t touch you anywhere you don’t want to be touched. And I’ve seen you.” She met his eyes across the pillow. “You ain’t ugly, Daryl Dixon.”

He chewed on his lip. The combination of uncertainty in his face and the unabashed masculinity burning a line in her palm were enough to make her head spin.

“Don’t mind. You wanna?”

She nodded.

He went to shift away, and when that tightened her grip on him, he sucked in a breath, his hand coming down over hers. His hips jumped a little, flexing along with his erection. “Feels good,” he mumbled, his voice rough with lack of breath.

She rubbed her thumb over the smooth head of his cock, a hint of moisture beading against her touch.

Daryl muttered a curse and eased away from her. He popped the top button on his shirt, avoiding her eyes.

She laid a hand on his knee, not wanting to break the link between them as he dragged the shirt up and off his head. His shoulders hunched forward, the muscles in his back standing out even more brokenly as he turned and tossed the garment to the floor, facing away from her. In the soft candlelight, the ridges of his scars left little flickers of shadows along their edges. Stretching out like they were bigger than they really were.

He didn’t turn back around.

His knees drew up toward his chest and he crossed his arms over the top of them. Kicked his legs out flat, his thick quadricep muscles twitching. Yanked them up to his chest again. He scrubbed a hand over his head.

He was shaking.

Carol caught his shoulder, careful not to touch the span of his back. Even now that he’d told her she could.

“Lay down with me,” she murmured, so softly it wouldn’t shatter the silence in the big, empty room. She urged him down onto his side even though he was clamped tense now, wouldn’t look at her. She reached over him and drew the sheet up. Covering his legs and tucking it up over his chest. She settled in behind him without touching his skin, but combed her fingers through his hair, curling around him and pressing a kiss to the nape of his neck.

He pulled in a ragged breath like he might speak, but didn’t. Carol pulled her fingers through his hair, letting her fingernails stroke over his scalp. It was a safe touch, for them, because she figured that no one who’d hurt him had ever played with his hair. She kissed his neck again, kept smoothing her hand over his hair until he started breathing once more. His shoulders were still knotted hard when she finally laid a hand on his back. A little left of center, so she could feel his heart beating under her palm. She didn’t move.

Walkers could attack and this whole place could burn around their ears and she would never move from this spot, not until she’d made him comfortable enough to relax. His heart sprinted, every beat pressing against the base of her third finger, in the ugly dent of the place her wedding ring had lain for so long.

He grunted, but for once, she didn’t know what that sound meant. His knees drew up toward his chest like they did when he was asleep. The sheet fell just enough for her to glimpse him squeezing his hands between his knees.

“ ’S okay,” he said.

Carol closed her eyes, loving him so much in that moment but not daring to say it, because the words would be too much for him right now.

She knew it. She knew him.

He was so painfully, terrifyingly brave, and never more so than when she stroked her hand quietly down his back and he quivered like she’d strummed his bowstring, but he never made a sound.

She tucked her face into the back of his neck, letting her breath warm his skin before she kissed it again, very softly. “Daryl?”

“ ’S okay.”

She shivered this time, her body still warm and heavy from her orgasm. Her nipples hardening when they brushed his shoulder blades; a reminder that she’d shifted too close in her worry for him.

Circles. Somewhere in her mind, she decided that circles were safe. Blows were random, circles were softer, more thoughtful. So she stroked him in soft, round motions. Her hand firm enough to be comforting, not hard enough to chafe. His scars bumped and rippled under her palm, skimming under her passing hand like the ripples their stones had made when they skipped across the water.

She dipped her head and kissed the surprisingly soft skin of his shoulder blade. He jerked under her touch and started to shake. Carol laid her hand on his back, cuddling close now. She wasn’t entirely sure if she was doing the right thing and he was so, so important. She wanted to be steady and calm and strong for him and every time a ridge of scar passed under her palm she was reminded that her own scars were smaller, her muscles softer, and she would never be as tenth as tough as he was right now.

But she wanted, so badly, to be strong enough to keep him safe.

He was tense still, his muscles woven steel under her hand. She propped herself up on an elbow to check his face, but saw something else instead. Somehow, in the emotion of the moment, she’d thought his arousal would have abated, but instead it was thrusting thunderously forward.

Carol blinked and smoothed her hand down his spine. He quivered, his knees pinching tighter over his hands, his erection throbbing visibly.

_Oh._

He jerked. The shivers that wracked him grew stronger until she bit her lip, keeping her hands as gentle as she could while she tried to decipher his complicated reaction to her touch. It felt momentous; crystallizing all the air in their cozy little room so she knew she’d always remember this moment. And she stayed with him within it, her hands their link, letting love bleed into him from her every touch. He was beautiful, to her eyes and her fingers and her heart; battered and strong and utterly perfect.

She let both hands melt down the length of his scarred back, awed by gratitude that he was trusting her this much. That what he wanted was _her._

Then, his whole body shuddered. Suddenly, he ripped his hands out from between his knees, grabbed his cock, and exploded. The initial shock of surprise hadn’t even passed before Carol caught his shoulder, the muscle swelling into her palm as she matched her naked body to cover the curve of his spine. His orgasm ripped through him in hard jerks, as rough and masculine as everything else about him. Her nipples prickled hard against his skin and she couldn’t help but press a kiss to his spine that dragged a shaky groan out of him.

“Fuck,” he rasped and fell onto his back. He fisted a handful of sheet across his lap and then balled it up and pushed it away, like he wanted to hide the wet marks. His face burned a deep red all the way down into his collarbone.

Carol pressed her face into the heat of his throat, wrestling with a tide of emotion so deep and complex she wasn’t sure how to hold onto all of it. A smile spread across her face until her cheeks hurt and she nibbled at his earlobe. “Thanks,” she whispered.

He twitched, turning to stare at her. “For _what_?”

“You came almost as fast as I did.” She propped herself up on an elbow and grinned. “Very gentlemanly of you to try and make me feel better.”

He snorted, glanced away. But his arm settled around her again.

A minute later he said, “Didn’t mean to. Not like that. Ain’t nobody ever…” He gestured to his back with his free hand. “Felt…” He paused for a long moment, thinking. “Good.”

Carol’s lashes swept down, something lurching within her chest.

She crawled up on top of him, the heat of all their bare skin a shock to her system. “Being with you always feels good to me,” she whispered. “It feels right.” She brushed his hair back and met his eyes. “Sometimes I feel guilty about that; that the future I prayed for brought the end of the world along with it.”

“Prayin’ don’t mean shit,” Daryl said. “Only things I ever prayed for was for my daddy to die and to find Sophia. Didn’t get neither of ‘em ‘till it was too late to matter.”

Carol traced her hand over one of the scars left by his father, and down to the faded pink bolt wound in his side he’d gotten while looking for Sophia.

Somehow, it meant so, so much that a man who didn’t believe in God had prayed for her little girl.

“But we’ve got the prison now,” she whispered, meeting his eyes. “And it’s not too late.”

She was so close she could feel his hard exhale on her lips. He raised his head just enough to kiss her. It felt like unimaginable luxury to lie with him, safe and warm, and enjoy all the ways his tongue could feel against hers. She kept her hand over his bolt scar and he kept his cupped at the small of her back, like he wanted her to stay close but didn’t want to ask for that with words.

He was growing hard against her again. Carol couldn’t help but curl into him, endlessly awed by the proof of his attraction to her. She wondered how many years it would take her to get used to the idea that her simple body was exactly what turned him on.

She hoped that they had long enough together that someday, they would be comfortable enough to take each other for granted.

Daryl mumbled something into their next kiss, his hands clenching so hard on her body it almost hurt.

She made a questioning sound, and when he said it again, she stopped breathing and just held onto him. “I love you, too.”

She hadn’t been sure he’d ever feel safe enough to say the words out loud. But once he had, she couldn’t stay in his arms without reaching for the place his body surged toward hers. All too soon, he was grunting and straining up into her touch. She resettled her thighs to either side of his hips, her stomach muscles twitching with anticipation, the space between her legs aching and empty. But he stopped her again, fumbling under the edge of the blanket to retrieve a hidden package of condoms and then pausing again to open a little bottle of lubricant.

She raised her eyebrows. “What else do you have under there?”

He blushed, yanking at the foil seal on top of the bottle. “Glenn left it,” he mumbled. “Said them rubbers chafe after awhile. Might hurt ya. Specially if it’d been a long time since—” He blushed brighter and she resisted the urge to tease. Mostly because she was distracted by the rough way he was fisting the lube onto the condom covering his hard cock, and then…

She squeaked as his wetted fingers found her, rubbing determinately as if she wasn’t already wet enough. She fell forward, catching herself on his chest and his touch slowed, petting her. When her hazy eyes fell open, she found him watching her with something like reverence. Desire gave way to something deeper and she caught his hand, winding it into hers as she shifted over him and brought his cock into her body. His forehead twitched and he watched her with an expression she’d never seen on his face. She struggled not to wince at the stretch of him, but then the satisfaction of it rushed in and left her breathless.

She could feel him in her, with her, in so many ways. When he finally fit inside, it felt like one more step on a road they’d been on for a long time.

But even for all of that, they didn’t get the rhythm right on the first try. Carol couldn’t move fast enough when she was on top, and when he rolled them onto her back, Daryl went too hard. Which felt really good and a little out of control all at once. Carol stopped him with a single touch to his hip, her chest going tight when he froze immediately, checking her face.

On an impulse, she pulled him down onto his side, tucking her hips back into his lap in the way they always slept together. When he pushed back inside, she gasped at the change in angle. He cradled one hand over her belly, tangling her fingers with his, and the other arm locked across her chest, holding her steady. His ragged breaths warmed the back of her neck as he hid his face against her.

And there, with him at her back, she relaxed. The desire building in her felt warmer, more solid, and she hooked her leg up and back over his, opening up so he could go deeper. His hand moved lower, cupping her as he stroked himself inside of her. She could tell he was forcing himself to slow for her, but all that power exploded out in the depth of each deliberate push, hitting her so deep it left her quivering. She’d never been able to finish during sex before—too frantic, too distracting. But now, the dark winding of tension in her belly had her wriggling and grinding herself against him. Held firmly between his hand and his cock, her orgasm washed over her as naturally as if it had always been there. She gasped a little, the clench of her inner muscles so much more satisfying with him buried inside her. Daryl groaned.

“Carol.” He jerked unevenly and she caught his forearm, squeezing in their old signal for more.

She tried to tell him it was okay, but all that came out was a wordless moan as his faster rhythm kicked off her climax all over again. Her nails dug into his forearm and he shouted, battering his hips against her ass as his control snapped. His legs strained against hers as he snapped off three explosive thrusts, growling grunts tearing free from his chest that she wanted to keep like trophies for all they told about the pleasure she’d brought him.

When he went slack against the mattress, they were curled together like a matched set of commas, the sheets tangled all around their ankles. She squeezed her leg over his, finding his hand and tucking it up against her chest. She pulsed once more, warmth spreading like a drug through her veins.

Her ears sharpened as she came back to herself, but she didn’t hear anything. No one was looking for them, nothing needed to be done. She exhaled, and sank back against his chest. Daryl mumbled, nuzzling his nose into her hair.

When he started to soften into sleep, Carol roused herself. He blinked, eyes still hazy. He didn’t protest as she took the condom off him and tossed it in the trashcan. But his head turned to track her as she crouched to dig in the pocket of her discarded cargo pants.

“What’re ya lookin’ for?”

“This.” She held up the green lump of stone with a smile, then placed it in the center of the small table, right below their glowing candle.

“That the jasper from the pond?” He pushed up onto his elbow, a flicker of puzzlement creasing his forehead. “How’d you know that’s the one I liked best?”

“It was the one you touched the most.” Her smile softened. “Same way I knew you liked me.”

She settled back into his arms, both them staring up at the little green rock in the candlelight.

“You been hauling that thing around for a long time,” he said.

She nodded, her hair catching on the whiskers of his chin. “I was just waiting to find it the right home.”

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: I wanted to thank all of you for going on this ride with me. This story isn’t something I did alone, tapping away at my worn keyboard at my desk. This is something you and I and all the people who work on the show made together—making a whole lot of something out of a whole lot of nothing. It’s entertainment, it’s escape, it’s a little piece of human nature served up in a story so we can recognize and forget ourselves all at the same time. Thanks for being a part of that.


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